Birds of Celebes: Peristeridae. g(jl 



Duivenbode, the owner) paid it a visit; and just as the schooner was coming- 

 to an anchoi', a bird was seen flying from sea-ward Avhich fell into the water 

 exhausted before it could reach the shore. A boat was sent to pick it up, and 

 it was found to be a Nicobar pigeon, which must have come from New Guinea, 

 and flown a hundred miles, since no such bird previously inhabited the island". 

 Mr. Woodford (27) records a similar fact: "One flew on board and settled for 

 some seconds, when we were distant forty miles to the westward of Renual Island 

 — ■ an outlying island that can be hardly said to belong to the Solomon group 

 at all". The species may ultimately prove to be a sort of "gipsy migrant", like 

 Myristicivora bicolor, its local wanderings being due to the ripening of fruits and 

 seeds on different islands. Mr. Geisler says that this is the case on Pigeon 

 Island off the Gazelle Peninsula, N.Britain. Wiglesworth has wrongly suggested 

 that it appears to possess "an extraordinarily fixed, invariable constitution — to 

 be less plastic than_ other species under the conditions which promote change, 

 perhaps on account of its relatively greater antiquity" [Aves Polynesiae, Intro- 

 duction), but now that its wandering habits are known, it will be seen that 

 there is no reason to suppose it to be less variable than other Pigeons. 



The gizzard of the Nicobar Pigeon, as was first shown by Sir W. Flower 

 (4) and later remarked by Davison in the Nicobars (13), is furnished interiorly 

 with two long disks, "between which is a single pebble usually of white quartz 

 a little larger than a fresh pea". "The stomachs of all those I shot on Katchall 

 contained seeds very similar to a prune stone, more or less broken up, but on 

 Batty Malve they seemed to have eaten a whitish seed about the size of the 

 head of a blanket pin". Prof. Newton (f 3) draws attention to the remarks of 

 Garrod (P. Z. S. 1878, 102) and of Verreaux and Des Murs on the correspond- 

 ing "nut- cracking" gizzards of Carpophaga latrans of Fiji and of Phaenorhina goliath 

 of New Caledonia. 



ORDER GALLINAE. 



The young of the GalUnae are hatched on the gxound, are covered with 

 down and are capable of running about and feeding themselves almost immedi- 

 ately on leaving the egg; or, in the case of the Megapodes, they are hatched 

 by the heat of the sun or other agency in the ground in which the egg has 

 been buried by the j^arents, and they are in some (if not in all) cases capable 

 of flying on leaving the egg. These peculiarities distinguish the GalUnae from 

 the orders hitherto treated of, though not from the Turnices, Ralli, Grallae, 

 and others. 



The GalUnae are of terrestrial habits, walking and running well — needless 

 to say never hopping; in diet they are phytophagous and probably feed also 



