PIL WILLE r— PI NT A DO 725 



At least 500 species of Pigeons have been described, and many- 

 methods of arranging them suggested. The most recent is that by 

 Count T. Salvadori {Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxi. London: 1893), but 

 though elaborated with the usual skill of that careful worker, it 

 cannot be deemed satisfactory since it is based only on some 

 external characters, and of these the amount of feathering of the 

 " tarsus," which is relied upon by a good many authors, receives 

 but little notice. Perhaps, however, no other method is at present 

 possible, for certainly the partial attempt of Garrod (Proc. Zool. 

 Soc. 1874, pp. 249-259) was not very successful. The Count, 

 rightly premising that " the Pigeons constitute a very homogeneous 

 Order," divides it into two Suborders, Colurnhx and Didi, asserting 

 that the former of them " does not admit of division into easily 

 definable or sharply defined groups" (but to this statement Didunculus 

 proves a striking exception), recognizing it as composed of 5 

 Families, Treronidse and Colunihidse with 3 subfamilies each ; Feris- 

 teridse with 7, and Gouridse and Didunmlid,x, each consisting of a 

 single genus, and the last of a single species. Of genera he admits 

 on the whole upwards of 60, to say nothing of subgenera, and it 

 would be useless here to give even their names, since want of space 

 forbids anything useful being said of them. The older works on 

 the group, such as Temminck's folio (Paris : 1808-11), with its con- 

 tinuation (in 1838-43) by Florent Provost, and Selby's more modest 

 Natural History of the Columhidx (1835) are of course out of date, 

 and a new monograph of the Pigeons, containing all the recent dis- 

 coveries, would be a desirable acquisition. 



PILWILLET, one of the many names of the Willet, Symphemia 

 semipalmata, but also applied, according to Mr. Dresser {Ibis, 1886, 

 p. 34), in Galveston Bay to the North- American Oyster-CATCHER, 

 Hxmatopus palliatus. 



PIMLICO, one of the names given to the Australian Friar- 

 bird. 



PINC-PINC (or rather " Tinc-tinc "), the name which a South- 

 African bird, Drymoeca or Cisticola textrix, has given itself from its 

 ringing metallic cry, often uttered as it hovers in the air (Layard, 

 B. S. Afr. p. 85), and a species chiefly known to English readers 

 from the often-repeated copy of Le Vaillant's figure {Ois. d^Afr. 

 pi. 131) of a beautiful nest, which he wrongly assigned to it as its 

 fabricator, the real builder of the wonderful structure being 

 (Layard, op. cit. pp. 86, 114) the Kapok vogel (Cotton-bird), jEgi- 

 thalus capensis, a near ally of ^. pendulinus, the so-called Penduline 

 Titmouse of Europe. 



PINK, otherwise Spink, a well-known name of the Chaffinch. 



PINTADO, a Portugiiese word, meaning painted or mottled, 



