508 THE PIGEONS 



THE PIGEONS 

 [W. P. PYCRAFT] 



Though the term "amphibious" is by common consent and 

 usage restricted to those creatures which lead a double life, alter- 

 nately on land and in the water, it might, with hardly less cogency, 

 be applied to birds like the pigeons, for, as the most casual survey 

 of their habits and general conformation shows, they too lead a 

 divided life, alternately between lofty perches and the ground. 

 Speaking broadly, they must be regarded as arboreal birds, though 

 some never at any time in their lives seek harbourage amid trees, 

 but spend their lives amid crags and beetling cliffs. But by the 

 shortness of their legs it is obvious they are not ground dwellers. 

 Some, however, have become so, and in these, be it noted, the legs 

 are long, as in the great crowned pigeons, the Nicobar pigeon, the 

 Otidiphaps, and the extinct dodo and solitaire, for instance. Their 

 relationship to the plover-tribe is, externally, indicated in nothing 

 but the form of the beak, which presents but little variation in 

 shape, the tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculv^) and the white-fronted 

 ground-pigeon (Henicophaps albifrons) departing most markedly from 

 the type in developing more massive jaws. They differ conspicu- 

 ously from their relations, the plovers, in that their eggs, which 

 never exceed two in number, are always white, and in that the 

 young are but scantily clothed, emerging from the shell, indeed, 

 naked, and with sealed eyelids, and remain long helpless in the 

 nest, which is at best but an indifferently constructed platform of 

 sticks. 



The method of feeding the young is peculiar, since the nestling 

 thrusts its beak within the mouth of the parent, who pumps up 

 from the crop a milky fluid, secreted by the walls thereof, which are 

 richly supplied with blood-vessels, as also is the skin immediately 



