AYES. 435 



Sp. Thinocorus rumicivorus Eschsch., Tinochorus Eschsclioltzii Lesson, Esch- 

 SCHOLTZ Zooloffisclier Atlas, Berlin, 1829, Tab. 11. Less. Ce7it. Zool. PI. 50 



(fern, and Thinocorus Swainsonii Lesson, III. de Zool. PI. 16 male?); 



Thinocorus oriignianus Lesson, Cent. Zool. PI. 48, 49 ; small birds from 

 Chili, of the size of a lark, to which also in colour and form they have some 

 resemblance. 



Family XIX. Columhince. Bill short or moderate, straight, 

 compressed, bent towards the harder tip, vaulted. Nostrils opening 

 by a longitudinal fissure in a soft, tumid membrane covering the 

 base of upper mandible. Feet moderate, with tarsi strong, unarmed, 

 mostly scutellate anteriorly, very often short. Toes padded below, 

 often surrounded by membrane, tlie anterior cloven; hallux long, 

 insistent. Wings moderate. Tail with 12 feathers, mostly even 

 or rounded, in some graduated or cuneate. 



Compare on this family Hist. nat. des Pigeons avec figures peintes, par 

 Madame Knipj le texte par C. J. Temminck, Paris, 1808— iSri, folio; 

 Tome II. le texte par Elorent-Pkevot, Paris, 1838 — 1843; — on this 

 family and the entire order C. J. Temminck Hist. nat. des Pigeons et des 

 GaUinacees, Amsterdam and Paris, 1813 — 1815, 3 Vols. 8vo. 



The doves, not only by their toes entirely free and other pecu- 

 liarities of structure, but also by their habits of life, their dwelling 

 and making their nests in trees, &c., form the transition to the sing- 

 ing birds, with which Linn^us arranged them '. They form a very 

 natural family, of which fully 200 species from all parts of the 

 world are now known, which is much more than one-third of all the 

 species of this order. With the exception of the aberrant genus 

 Didus, and of the then unknown genus Didunculus, which forms 

 the transition to it, they composed only a single genus, Columha, in 

 the arrangement of Linn.eus. He counted forty species, of which, 

 however, some diftered only in name, or were nothing but I'aces of 

 one species. Many species live together in large flocks. The very 

 small coeca are a remarkable anatomical peculiarity of the dove-tribe, 

 since these parts are long in the rest of the gallinaceous birds. 



Columha L. Bill moderate or short, mostly slender. Wings 

 moderate, mostly with second or third quill longest of all. Claws 

 moderate or short, curved moderately. 



^ " Columbas ad Passeres nee ad Gallinas pertinere docet monogamia, oscidatio, 

 incubatus alternus, nidritio pulli, ova pauca, nidificatio, locus in altis." Syst. nat. ed. 

 \2, I. p. ■284. 



28—2 



