WHITE-CROWNED PIGEON. 293 



form and plumage, and has moreover the same habit of breeding in 

 holes and crevices of rocks, but it is at the same time entirely distinct. 



The size of the White-crowned Pigeon has been underrated by 

 authors. Its length is fourteen inches and its extent twenty-three. 

 The bill is one inch long, carmine red at the base, the end from the 

 nostrils being bluish-white : the irides are orange yellow, the bare circle 

 round the eye dusky white, becoming red in the breeding season. The 

 entire crown, including all the feathers advancing far on the bill is white 

 with a tinge of cream color, and is narrowly margined with black, which 

 passes insensibly into the general deep slate color : on the nape of the 

 neck is a small doep purplish space changing to violet; the remainder 

 of the neck above, and on the sides, is covered by scale-like feathers, 

 bright green with bluish and golden reflections, according as the light 

 falls. The sides of the head, the body above, and whole inferior surface, 

 the wings and tail above and beneath, in short the whole bird without 

 any exception but the parts described, is of a uniform deep bluish slate, 

 much lighter on the belly, more tinged with blue on the stout-shafted 

 rump-feathers, somewhat glossy and approaching to brownish black on 

 the scapulars : the quills are more of a dusky black. The wings are 

 nearly eight inches long, reaching when closed to two-thirds of the tail ; 

 the first primary is somewhat shorter than the fourth, and the second 

 and third are longest ; the third is curiously scalloped on the outer web, 

 which is much narrowed for two inches from the tip ; all are finely 

 edged with whitish. The tail is five inches long, perfectly even, of 

 twelve uniform broad feathers with rounded tips. The feet are carmine 

 red, the nails dusky ; the tarsus measures less than an inch, being sub- 

 equal to the lateral toes, and much shorter than the middle one. 



The female is perfectly similar. It is one of this sex, shot in the 

 beginning of March, that is represented in the plate, and is perhaps a 

 young, or not a very old bird, for it would seem that as they advance 

 in age, these Pigeons become somewhat lighter colored, the crown ac- 

 quiring a much purer white. This however we only infer from authors, 

 our plate and description being faithfully copied from nature. 



The young are distinguished by duller tints, and the crown is at first 

 nearly uniform with the rest of their dark plumage : this part after a 

 time changes to gray, then grayish white, and becomes whiter and 

 whiter as the bird grows older. It is proper to remark, after what has 

 been said under the article of the Band-tailed Pigeon, ante, p. 200, that the 

 white color extends equally over the whole crown, not more on one part 

 than another ; thus never admitting of a restricted band or line, as in 

 that much lighter colored bird. 



Another species closely allied to, and perhaps identical with our 

 Band-tailed Pigeon (though we have equally good reasons for believing 

 it the Columba rufina of Temminck), and of which we have not yet 



