(_White-crowned Pigeon._ +Bon.+)
_Columba leucocephala._ +Linn.+
Aud. pl. 177.
[87] Length 16 inches, expanse 23¹⁄₂, flexure 7³⁄₄, tail 5¹⁄₂,
rictus 1¹⁄₄, tarsus 1¹⁄₁₀, middle toe 2¹⁄₂. Irides cream-white;
eyelids purplish flesh colour.
This fine dove is common in almost all situations, but chiefly affects
the groves of pimento, which generally adorn the mountain pens. The
sweet aromatic berries afford him abundant and delicious food during
the pimento season; the umbrageous trees afford him a concealment
suited to his shy and suspicious character; and on them his mate
prefers to build her rude platform-nest, and rear her tender progeny.
Wary exceedingly, the Bald-pate, from his seat among the topmost twigs,
discerns the gunner, himself unseen, and intimates his vicinity only
by the rushing of his strong wings, as he shoots off to some distant
part of the grove. In the breeding season, however, when alarmed from
the nesting tree, he does not fly far, and soon returns; so that the
sportsman, by concealing himself, and watching the bird’s return, may
bring him down. When the pimento is out of season, he seeks other
food; the berries of the sweetwood, the larger ones of the breadnut,
and burn-wood, of the bastard cedar, and the fig, and the little ruddy
clusters of the fiddle-wood, attract him. He feeds early in the
morning, and late in the afternoon: large numbers resort to a single
tree, (though not strictly gregarious,) and when this is observed, the
sportsman, by going thither before dawn, and lying in wait, may shoot
them one by one, as they arrive. In September and October they are
in fine condition, often exceedingly fat and juicy, and of exquisite
flavour. In March the clammy-cherry displays its showy scarlet racemes,
to which the Bald-pates flock. The Hopping Dick, Woodpecker, and
Guinea-fowl, feed also upon it. In April, Sam tells me he has seen as
many as thirty, almost covering a tree, feeding on berries which he
believes were those of the bully-tree. Late in the year they resort to
the saline morasses, to feed on the seeds of the black-mangrove, which
I have repeatedly found in the craw; I have even seen one descend to
the ground beneath a mangrove, doubtless in search of the fallen seeds.
In general, however, the Bald-pate is an arboreal pigeon, his visits to
the earth being very rare. He often feeds at a distance from home; so
that it is a common thing to observe, just before nightfall, straggling
parties of two or three, or individuals, rushing along with arrowy
swiftness in a straight line to some distant wood.
The Bald-pate is a noble bird; plump, yet of a graceful form; the
iridescent scale-like feathers of his neck, with their black borders,
are very striking: he is staid and sedate in manners, when sitting,
and there is something of supercilious sternness in his countenance,
which, combined with his snow-white head, always reminds me, strange
as the comparison may appear, of the grand Bald-Eagle. His coo is
_Sary̆-coat-blūe_, uttered with much energy, the second syllable short
and suddenly elevated, the last a little protracted and descending.
Incubation takes place chiefly in the months of June and July. In
Bluefields morass many nests are found on the tallest black-mangroves,
and are much robbed by the negro youths, who rear the young for sale:
the native pigeons being, more than any other birds, kept in cages by
the Creoles. The nest is merely a very slight platform of dry twigs,
rudely attached, on which two eggs are laid. They are of delicate
whiteness, in form very regularly oval, and in dimensions 1¹⁄₂ inch by
1¹⁄₁₀. I never heard of its breeding on rocks.
I add a few particulars of some which I kept from early age. I shot
a young one on the 2nd of September, breaking the tarsus; and about
a week afterwards another was brought me which may have been rather
older. The former appeared not to have finally left the nest. Both were
exceedingly ugly; long-necked, thin-bodied, the head not well rounded,
the fleshy part of the beak prominent, and its base unfeathered. The
whole plumage was blackish ash-coloured, each feather slightly tipped
with paler, and the feathers of the head terminating in little curled
grey filaments, which added to the uncouth appearance of the birds. In
a week or two I perceived these filaments were gradually disappearing,
and about the beginning of October the small feathers began to clothe
the base of the beak: these feathers were greyish-white, and at the
same time the grey hue was beginning to spread up the forehead, I
believe by the dropping of the black feathers, and their immediate
replacement by the white ones. About this time also the general plumage
began to assume the blue hue of the adult, in patches; and on the 12th
of October, I first observed the beautiful iridescent feathers of the
neck, but as yet only on one side. These notes refer to the elder; the
other was about two weeks more backward. On the 16th, I first heard it
coo; for some time it had now and then uttered a single note, but on
this day it gave the whole _Sary̆-coat-blūe_, but short, and in a low
tone; and that only once. By the end of November the white had spread
over the whole crown as in the adult, but was not yet so pure or so
smooth. A third, which I purchased in November, though a young one of
the season, having been reared from the nest, was much more mature both
in plumage and size. By the end of that month the crown of this one was
_perfectly_ in the adult plumage, the neck feathers complete on both
sides, the body plump and smooth. This individual, when first put into
the cage, was very cross, pecking at all the others, including some
Pea-doves, whenever they came near him, and even stretching himself
down from his perch to reach them as they walked under him. One or
two of the Pea-doves suffered particularly, for he munched out their
feathers by mouthfuls, laying bare a large portion of their backs. He
soon became more reconciled, but never associated with them, never
descending from his perch all day, except to feed or drink. The other
Bald-pates walked about a good deal with the Pea-doves, and were rather
playful. Any new object they would examine and lay hold of. Their cage,
a capacious packing-box, was lined with paper; somehow or other, a bit
of it was torn up; the Bald-pates were continually pulling at this, and
were not content till they had stripped off a large space. A hole in
the gauze front had been darned with thread; they would take the loose
ends in their beaks and tug at them. Sometimes they would seize a stick
or twig, and drag it about the cage. A White-belly, taken in a springe,
and put with them, would not eat the Indian corn, with which they were
fed, and was supplied with orange-pips: the Bald-pate would run up to
the White-belly when feeding, and playfully endeavour to snatch the
pips from him as he picked them up; when, however, he succeeded in
getting possession of one, he immediately dropped it: it was only the
fun he wanted. If I inserted my finger through the gauze, he would
seize it with his beak, and, as it were, _chew_ it, and tug at it in
various directions, turning, and sometimes quite inverting, his head.
He would always take a grain of corn from my hand, even if he did not
eat it.
Towards the end of the year, all of my Bald-pates used to coo
frequently, and, what is strange, often in the night. When wakeful
from sickness, I have heard it from the adjoining room at intervals,
four or five times during the night: especially on those nights in
January, when the furious _norths_ blow with so much violence; the
bird probably awakened or made uncomfortable by the cold and howling
gusts that penetrate every room, as if they would “blow the house
out of the windows.” On each occasion the whole set of syllables was
repeated twice or thrice in quick succession, preceded by a low note,
and then the former silence was maintained. The imitation of their coo,
which may be very accurately effected, always attracted attention from
the birds, manifested by their eyes turned towards the sound, and their
necks stretched out.