T)ic Pigeons of the Gambia.



103



with the hen ; several nests were built and fertile eggs laid, but the

little ones were always abandoned by their parents four or five

days after being hatched ! Once I hoped to obtain a success at

last. The birds fed the young ones as well as possible ; I supplied

them with soft food of the usual kind, soaked millet and plenty of

live ants’ egg. But about the twelfth day after hatching the parents

seemed so restless that I feared the young were dead. I looked

in the nest and found it empty. Searching about the aviary, I

discovered two bodies already in pin-feather. Another nest was

constructed. But I gave over the hope of rearing any young this

year, for the breeding-season was coming to an end, and in October

live ants’ eggs are no longer obtainable.


Some time afterwards, my bird-keeper having given the

birds chickweed covered with dew, some of them — and naturally

the rarest — were struck down with diarrhoea, and I lost my two

male Violet-eared Waxbills.



THE PIGEONS OF THE GAMBIA.


By E. Hopkinson, M.A., M.B., D.S.O.


(Concluded from p. 38.)


Senegal Dove (Stigmatopelia scncgalensis).


Range : Africa generally to Palestine, Sokotra.


These brightly-coloured, graceful Doves are in the Gambia

essentially village birds ; they frequent the yards and the immediate

vicinity of towns and villages, finding most of their food at the corn¬

beating places and rubbish heaps, and getting their water from the

water-jars and coolers in which it is kept. From this they get their

Mandingo name, “ Dumbokango Pura,” which means “ Jar-rim Dove ’

—a much more appropriate name (as far as Gambia is concerned at any

rate) than “ Palm Dove, as they are so commonly called in dealers’

advertisements, etc.


Their nests are nearly always in the thatch of huts or the fiat-

roofed grass shelters (“ kwiangs ”), in which we all live as much as

possible. Sometimes, however, they lay in the forks of large trees,

and occasionally select smaller ones, such as oranges or limes, in



