(-iKOFliATS. 



various herbs and shrubs. Contrary to most of the Coi.L-Mn.+: inhabiting Australia, when 

 disturbed it does not usually seek safety in flight, but runs along the ground and squats down 

 among the scanty herbage, and so close does it lie that it will olten suffer itself to be almost 

 trodden upon. These Pigeons are remarkably tame, so much so, that many station owners 

 refrain from shooting them in the vicinity of their homesteads; they are also hardy and thrive 

 well in confinement. They are almost strictly terrestrial in habits, frequenting, breeding and 

 obtaining their food on the ground. 



A leading authority sought to show that the :_;round-inliabiting Pigeons belonging to the 

 genus Geophaps should be separated from the Columba', and placed among the (iallin;e. 

 Unlike the young of the latter Order of birds, whicli in some instances run about withm a few 

 hours of being hatched, the young of the I'artrid-e Bronze-wing are perfectly helpless when 

 newly hatched, and for several weeks are entirely dependent on their parents for a subsistence. 

 .At a meeting of the Zoological Society of London, held on the 2nd February, 1892, Dr. P. L. 

 Sclater laid on the table two specimens, in spirits, of chicks of the Partridge Bronze-wing 

 (Geophaps scnpta) which had been hatched in the Society's Gardens on the 7th June, 1891, and 

 made the following remaiks : — " I cannot at all agree with Dr. Bowdler Sharpe in his recent 

 proposal to divide the very natural Order " Columbii' " into two portions, and to associate the 

 Geophaps or Ground Pigeons with the Gallinaceous birds. 



" According to the observations we have made from time to time in the Society's Gardens, 

 where several species of this ground Pigeon have bred repeatedly, the young of the Ground 

 Pigeons when hatched are nearly naked and quite helpless, and differ in no respect from the 

 typical Coluniba'. In proof of this I exhibit two specimens of the young of the Partridge I^ronze- 

 wing Pigeon (Geophaps scripta) hatched in the Gardens June 7th last, and about fourteen days 

 old when they died. It will be observed that at this date they were barely covered with feathers 

 and hardly Hedged. In fact one of them was actually killed by falling from a slight elevation 

 in the aviary, having been hatched in the nest of a Barbary Turtle Dove ( Tnrtur risorins), to 

 which the egg had been removed in consequence of the bird that laid it refusing to sit upon it. 

 It cannot therefore be said that these birds are 'able to run soon after birth.' Nor, in the 

 reference given by Dr. Sharpe does Mr. Gilbert, so far as I can gather from his remarks, say 

 so ; he merely states that the young bird (of G. smithii ) is clothed with down like the young of 

 the Quail, and I cannot therefore allow that on this ground there is any justihcation for the 

 important step that Dr. Siiarpe proposes to tal^e. 



" As regards the other pomt put forward by Dr. Sharpe in justification of his proposal, it is 

 no doubt the fact that the sternum of the .Australian Ground Pigeons is longer and narrower 

 than the corresponding organ in the typical Columba;. But the general characters of the 

 sternum in Geophaps and its allies remain the same as in the typical Columba', so that i>n this 

 point also I see no sufficient ground for the alteration proposed. I prefer to keep all the 

 Columba' together, as heretofore, in one sroup of ordinal value, as constituting a very well 

 defined and a very natural division of this class of birds, and I even doubt whether more than 

 one family can be properly made of them." 



According to the " Catalogue of iJirds in the British Museum," there are specimens in that 

 collection presented by Mr. J. R. Elsey, and obtained at North-western Australia in September 

 and October; also the type of this species obtained at Shoalwater Bay, Queensland. It also 

 occurs in the north-eastern portion of South Australia, and as it is common in parts of Western 

 Queensland, its range doubtless extends into the eastern portion of the Northern Territory, 

 where, however, both in the latter State and in the Gulf District of Queensland Geophaps smithn 

 is the coiumon species. 



Proc. Zool. Soc , 1S92, pp. 76-7 



