162 WOOD PIGEON. 



a sort of milk. The male and female both take their turns 

 in hatching the eggs and in feeding the young, the former 

 sitting from six to eight hours from nine or ten in the 

 morning to about three or four in the afternoon. 



The first brood are abroad by the beginning of May; the 

 second in the end of July. Mr. Macgillivray has known the 

 young unfledged in October, and a pair with down tips to 

 the feathers on the 26th. of that month; Mr. Hewitson, too, 

 so late as the middle of September; and E. A. Julian, Esq., 

 Jun., on the 15th. of that month, 1851, at Minchenay, near 

 Holbeton, Devon; so also E. C. Nunn, Esq., at Trevan Wood, 

 near Diss, Norfolk, on the 25th. of the same month in the 

 same year. 



Male; weight, about twenty ounces; length, one foot five 

 inches and a half to one foot six inches; bill, pale reddish 

 orange yellow, red at the base, powdered over with a white 

 dust; the cere almost white; iris, pale yellow; the eyelids 

 yellowish red, the bare part above them blue. Head, crown, 

 and neck on the back, greyish blue; on the sides some of 

 the feathers are bright green and some cream-coloured, and 

 below purple. The ring around, which is glossy white, and 

 composed on each side of twelve or fourteen scale-like feathers, 

 is begun to be assumed at about the end of two months, 

 and a fortnight suffices for its full development. In front 

 the neck is brownish purple, fading towards the breast and 

 sides into light greyish blue. Nape, greyish blue; chin, bluish 

 grey; throat, purple red; back above, greyish blue, tinged 

 with brown; below, light greyish blue. 



Extent of the wings from two feet four to two feet five 

 inches. The first quill feather is nearly as long as the fourth, 

 the second and third the longest; greater and lesser wing 

 coverts, dark bluish grey, the first four or five feathers of 

 each white or partially white, forming a white bar, much the 

 most conspicuous when the wings are spread. Primaries, 

 greyish black, the outer edges narrowly white; tertiaries, dark 

 bluish grey; greater and lesser under wing coverts, light 

 greyish blue. The tail, of twelve feathers, is long and very 

 broad, slightly rounded at the end, the two middle feathers 

 bluish grey, the ends, for a third of the whole length, dark 

 bluish grey, the others dull greyish blue in colour at the 

 base, lighter in the middle, and greyish black at the end; 

 underneath it is greyish black, with a band across the middle 

 of bluish grey; upper tail coverts, light greyish blue. The 



