240 A MANUAL OF THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA, 
tail-coverts, tail and wings; primary-coverts blackish with buff tips ; primary- 
quills sandy-buff at the base, becoming brown or vermiculated with brown towards 
the ends, the secondaries similar but more broadly tipped with buff; a patch on 
the fore-neck and nuchal collar bright chestnut ; an entire collar of black and white 
feathers ; sides of the face and upper throat white, minutely dotted with black, 
former more or less washed with sandy-rufous ; chin and middle of abdomen white, 
breast and sides of body buff, barred or spotted with black like the under tail-coverts ; 
under wing-coverts white, washed with buff and more or less dotted with black ; 
under-surface of quills brown, dusted with sandy-rufous; bill yellow, shading 
into black at the point; iris straw-yellow ; feet greenish-yellow. Total length 
170 mm. ; culmen 16, wing 100, tail 30, tarsus 24. 
Adult male.—Distinguished from the female by the chestnut patch on the breast 
as well as the nuchal band being very much paler. The collar is only indicated by 
buff and white, instead of black and white. Total length 152 mm.; culmen 13, 
wing 83, tail 30, tarsus 24. 
Immature male.—Difiers from the adult in the absence of the chestnut patch on 
the breast. 
Nestling—Appears to be undescribed. 
Nest.—Constructed of dried grasses, and is placed in a slight depression in 
the ground underneath the shelter of some convenient shrub or tuft of grass. 
Eggs.—¥our in number for a sitting; in shape pyriform ; of a stone-white 
ground-colour, thickly freckled and blotched, and a few smudges here and there of 
different shades of umber-brown and slaty-grey, a few nearly obsolete blotches of 
the latter colour appearing as if beneath the surface of the shell. Dimensions 
35 mm. by 25. 
Breeding-season.—September to February. 
Distribution and forms.—South-eastern Central Australia only, and consequently 
no subspecies are at present admitted. 
OrpER COLUMBAL. 
This order includes the Pigeons and the extinct Dodo and allied forms, the 
latter being separated with subordinal rank only as merely degenerate flightless forms, 
but this may be wrong as no recent investigator has studied the facts from recent 
knowledge. The general features of Pigeons are not easily diagnosed, though the 
birds themselves can never be confused: the bill with its generally pronounced 
dertrum suggests that of a Plover, while the operculate nostrils, the operculum swollen, 
just as strongly recall those of the Galline birds. In some cases the legs are absolutely 
Galline even to detail, while in others the legs are Parrot-like in appearance. The 
species are numerous and world wide in distribution, and are remarkable as laying 
two white eggs, which generally hatch out a male and female, hence the expression 
‘pigeon pair.” Internal features are very variable, and when Garrod attempted to 
classify them by these means he made an extraordinary muddle. By means of 
superficial features, however, a fairly satisfactory scheme can be prepared. Many 
families will be admitted, and then it will be seen that the species have diverged in 
different directions from several sources. Thus the Australian Ground-Doves, here 
united with the Turtle-Doves, may represent one family, the peculiar genus Ocyphaps 
another, and Lopholaimus a third. At present we are not so dividing the species, 
but we anticipate fuller knowledge will necessitate such action. 
Osteologically, the skull shows a schizognathous palate with schizorhinal nostrils, 
and with basipterygoid processes in the Columbiformes, which are absent in the 
Raphiformes. Some of the Columbiformes, however, show the nasals pseudo-holo- 
rhinal ; the lachrymal fuses with the ectethmoid and forms a large bone, in which 
sometimes a foramen is formed. There is generally a supraoccipital foramen and 
