TOOTH-BILLED PIGEON.— DitZiirtOjflts strigirostris. 



The cry of this bird is loud and sonorous, and not very easy of description. Some 

 authors compare it to the gobbling of a turkey cock, but T can perceive no resemblance 

 to that sound. It is more of a loud, hollow boom, than anything else, a kind of mixture 

 between a trombone and a drum, and every time that the bird utters this note, it bows 

 its head so low that the crest sweeps the ground. 



The nest of the Crowned Pigeon is said to be made in trees, the eggs being two in 

 number, as is generally the case with this group of birds. Its flesh is spoken highly 

 of by those who have eaten it. The general colour of this bird is a deep and nearly 

 uniform slate-blue ; the quill-feathers of the wing and tail being very blackish ash, and 

 a patch of puie white and warm marroon being found on the wing. 



In the Samoan islands of the Pacific, is found a bird of extreme rarity of form, 

 which is, as far as is known, unique among the feathered tribes that now inhabit the 

 earth. I say, now inhabit, because in former days, when the Dodo was still in existence, 

 that remarkable and ungainly bird presented a form and structure greatly similar to 

 those of the Tooth-Billed Pigeon. 



On account of its close relationship with the Dodo, it has received from some 

 systematic zoologists the generic name of Didunculus, or Little Dodo, while others 

 have given it the title of Gnathodon, or Toothed-jaw, in allusion to the structure of its 

 beak. The food of this bird consists largely of the soft bulbous roots of several plants. 

 The whole contour of the Tooth-bill is remarkable, and decidedly quaiut ; its rounded body 

 seeming hardly in accordance with the large beak, which is nearly as long as the head, 

 and is greatly arched on the upper mandible. The lower mandible is deeply cleft into 

 three distinct teeth near its tip. 



In colour it is rather a brilliant bird. Tlie head, neck, breast, and abdomen are 

 glossy greenish black, and upon the shoulders and the upper part of the back the 

 feathers are velvety black, each having a crescent-shaped mark of shining green near 

 its extremity. The rest of the back, the wings, tail, and under taU-coverts, are deep 

 chestnut. The primary and secondaiy quill-feathers of the wing are greyish black, and 

 the large arched bill is orange. The total length of this bird is about fourteen inches. 

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