( 411 ) 

 THE BLUE-HEADED PIGEON 



COLUMBA CYANOCEPHALA, LiNN. 

 PLATE CLXXII. Male and Female. 



A FEW of these birds migrate each spring from the Island of Cuba 

 to the Keys of Florida, but are rarely seen, an account of the deep 

 tangled woods in which they live. Early in May 1832, while on a shoot- 

 ing excursion with the commander of the United States Revenue Cutter, 

 the Marion, I saw a pair of them on the western side of Key West. 

 They were near the water, picking gravel, but on our approaching them 

 they ran back into the thickets, which were only a few yards distant. Se- 

 veral fishermen and wreckers informed us that they were more abundant 

 on the " Mule Keys ;" but although a large party and myself searched 

 these islands for a whole day, not one did we discover there. I saw a 

 pair which I was told had been caught when young on the latter Keys, 

 but I could not obtain any other information respecting them, than that 

 they were fed on cracked com and rice, which answered the purpose well. 



I have represented three of these Pigeons on the ground, with some 

 of the creeping plants which grew in the place where I saw the pair men- 

 tioned above. 



Columba CYANOCEPHALA, Lhiii. Sjst. Nat. vol. i. p. 282 Lalh. Intl. Ornitli. 



vol. ii. p. 698. 

 Blue-headed Turtle, Lath. Synops. vol. iv. p. 651. 



Adult Male. Plate CLXXII. 



Bill straight, and short, rather slender, compressed ; upper mandible 

 with a tumid fleshy covering at the base, a convex declinate obtuse tip, 

 of which the margins are acute and overlapping ; lower mandible with the 

 angle near the extremity, which is compressed and rounded. Nostrils 

 medial, oblique, linear. Head small and compressed ; the general form 

 robust, resembling that of many partridges. Legs short and of mode- 

 rate length ; tarsus covered anteriorly and laterally with quincuncial sub- 

 hexagonal scales, rounded and scaly behind ; toes scutellate, free, mar- 

 gined ; claws rather small, arched, compressed, flat beneath, obtuse. 



