204 AID IN EXTREMITIES. [CHAP. vi. 



when the men left him, not more than a mile in the 

 rear, we continued our search for water, but it would 

 have been to no purpose. Suddenly a Pigeon topped 

 the sand-hill it being the first bird we had seen a 

 solitary bird ; passing us like lightning, it pitched for 

 a moment, and for a moment only, on the plain, about 

 a quarter of a mile from us, and then flew away. It 

 could only have wetted its bill, but Mr. Sturt had marked 

 the spot, and there was water ! Perhaps I ought to dwell 

 for a moment on this singular occurrence, but I leave 

 it to make its own impression on the reader's feelings. 

 I was enabled to send back to the colt, and we managed 

 to save him ; and as there was a sufficiency of water 

 for our consumption, I determined to give the men a 

 day of rest, and to try if I could find a passage across 

 the desert a little to the eastward of the north."* 



The power of ventriloquism is a faculty that one 

 would hardly expect to find amongst Pigeons. Some of 

 these birds, however, do possess it. Whether it is ex- 

 ercised generally, or on occasions only, does not appear. 

 Those who have kept the common Bronze- wing say 

 that it can throw its voice to a distance, making it sound 

 as if it came from some bird a long way off, though the 

 creature itself is in a cage at one's elbow. In Wilkin- 

 son's "Manual for Emigrants,"! a South Australian 

 night is thus described : " It was nearly full-moon, 

 and the sky unclouded, every object being seen with 

 distinctness almost to as great a distance as in the 

 daytime. No sound broke the stillness except the dis- 

 tant lowing of cattle, and the unearthly sound made 

 by the Bronze-wing Pigeons." 



* Expedition into Central Australia, vol. ii. p. 51. 

 t Ch. ii. p. 330. 



