COLUMBID;E. 593 



The egg is large for the size of the bird ; white, 

 much blotched and smeared with dusky grey. 



With the Nightjar ends both the division Fissi- 

 rostres as well as the great and important Order of 

 Insessores. 



ORDER BASORES. Family COLUMBID^E. 



I now come to the third Order, that of Rasores, 

 which, although by no means so numerous as most 

 of the other Orders, nevertheless quite equals them 

 in importance, as to it belongs the principal in- 

 habitants of the dovecote, the poultry yard and the 

 game preserve. The British species included in 

 this Order are only twenty-one, and of these only 

 sixteen appear to me to have a claim to a place in 

 the list of British birds, and only half of that numbei 

 or eight out of the sixteen can be included in my 

 list. The Columbidse, or Pigeons, are the first 

 family of this Order that claim our attention 

 besides those here enumerated there is one other 

 species of this family, the Passenger Pigeon, in- 

 cluded in the British list, but it appears only to 

 have been twice noticed in England. 



WOOD PIGEON, Columba palumbus. The first of 

 the Columbidse I have to notice is the Wood Pigeon : 

 it is a resident and very numerous species in this 



2 c 3 



