Order-COLUMBAE. 



PIGEONS. 



IT IS now an accepted fact amongst naturalists, whether museum 

 or field, that the Pigeons and Doves are more satisfactorily 

 placed in an Order by themselves, than in conjimction with any 

 other of the game-birds. 



In their anatomy Pigeons are very closely related to the Galhna- 

 ceous birds, and yet more closely to the Pterocletes, or Sand-Grouse, 

 though they differ widely from either of these groups in having their 

 young bom naked and helpless, a character which has induced some 

 wTiters to classify them with the Passeres. Certain other anatomical 

 characteristics would seem to show their affinity to both the Strigidae, 

 (Owls) and the Vulturidae (Vultures), greatly as they differ from both 

 of these in general formation, structure, and external appearance. 



On the whole their place among Aves would seem to come best 

 next to the Pterocletes, where Blanford has located them. 



Family COLUMBIDAE. 



Salvadori, in Volume XXI of the British Museum Catalogue of 

 Birds, divides the Pigeons into five famiUes, but Blanford does not 

 recognize these differentiations as bemg of so great value, and combines 

 all our Indian birds into one family, though doubtless he would have 

 accepted the Gouridae and Didunculidae as separate famiHes had he 

 not been deahng with Indian birds only. 



The family Gouridae contains the magnificent Crown-Pigeons of 

 the Papuan Islands, birds which differ to some extent in internal con- 

 struction as well as external appearance from other Pigeons, and the 

 Didunculidae contains the one small Pigeon Didunculus strigirostris 

 of the Samoan Islands. 



Salvadori's other three families are the Treronidae or " Green 

 Pigeons," which frequent and roost in trees ; the Columbidae or True 



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