2148 



PIGEONS AND SAND GROUSE 



remarkably-handsome birds, but none more so than the blood- 

 eas e breasted dove (P. luzomca), from the Philippines, represented in the 



cut on p. 2147. The forehead and crown are pale gray; the top of 

 the head, upper parts, and sides of the breast dark gray, the feathers being edged 

 with metallic purple and green; the cheeks, throat, and breast white shading into 

 buff below, and there is a large patch of blood red on the middle of the breast. 

 The quills are reddish brown, there are six alternate bands of gray and chestnut 

 across each wing, and a black band near the tip of the outer tail feathers. The two 

 remaining genera, with the tail composed of less than twenty feathers, are distin- 

 guished by the longer tail. 



i -** iivr;jj 



BI.UE-BEARDED CUBAN DOVES. 

 (One-half natural size.) 



The Australian wonga wonga (Leucosarcia picata) is the only rep- 

 ' nga resentative of a genus, distinguished from the seventh (Eutrygon) by 

 the metatarsus being very little longer than the middle toe. This 

 dove, remarkable for its size, inhabits the brush country of Eastern Australia, where 

 it spends the greater part of its time on the ground, feeding on seeds and fallen 

 fruits. The noise made by its wings when rising is said to resemble that of a pheas- 

 ant, and its flight is never long sustained. In the two species of Eutrygon from 

 New Guinea, the metatarsus is twice as long as the third toe ; while the genus Oti- 

 diphaps, including three large black species, with chestnut back and wings, from 

 New Guinea and Fergusson island, is peculiar in having twenty feathers in the tail. 



