BALD-PATE. 299 



BALD-PATE.* 



( White-crowned Pigeon . Bo N . ) 



Columha leucocephala. Linn. 



Aud. pi. 177. 



This fine dove is common in almost all situations, 

 but chiefly affects the groves of pimento, which 

 generally adorn the mountain pens. The sweet aro- 

 matic berries afford him abundant and delicious 

 food during the pimento season ; the umbrageous 

 trees afford him a concealment suited to his shy 

 and suspicious character ; and on them his mate 

 prefers to build her rude platform-nest, and rear 

 her tender progeny. Wary exceedingly, the Bald- 

 pate, from his seat among the topmost tvdgs, dis- 

 cerns the gunner, himself unseen, and intimates 

 his vicinity only by the rushing of his strong wings, 

 as he shoots off" to some distant part of the grove. 

 In the breeding season, however, when alarmed 

 from the nesting tree, he does not fly far, and soon 

 returns ; so that the sportsman, by concealing him- 

 self, and watching the bird's return, may bring him 

 down. When the pimento is out of season, he 

 seeks other food; the berries of the sweetwood, 

 the larger ones of the breadnut, and burn- wood, 

 of the bastard cedar, and the fig, and the little ruddy 



* Length 16 inches, expanse 23^, flexui*e 7|, tail 5^, rictus 1^, tarsus 

 1-j'^, middle toe 1^. Irides cream-white ; eyelids purplish flesh colour. 



