70 



MY FOREIGN DOVES AND PIGEONS. 



three green, changing to rich fiery copper, the last 

 row large patches of violet, changing into Prussian 

 blue. The rest of the body is very like the 

 plumage of a pheasant, being brownish mottled 

 feathers, the crown of the head olive brown, with 

 a dull purplish band over the eye. The hen has a 

 whitish forehead, her breast is paler, not so rich a 

 shade of purple. The bronze in the wings is more 

 greenish gold in the first three rows and purple in 

 the hind row (lacking the red copper and blue in 

 the cock) ; her shape and mottling is very pheasant- 

 like. The eyes are full and dark, the feet salmon 

 red, the beak slaty black. In shape the Bronze- 

 wing is rather long than rounded; it is a heavil)'- 

 built bird, and the legs look rather short in propor- 

 tion to the body. 



WILD LIFE. 



Perhaps there is no foreign pigeon that has been 

 written about in its wild state so mucn as the 

 Bronze-wing. Gould says of them : "They love to 

 dwell on the most sterile plains, where 

 they feed almost exclusively on grass- 

 seeds, and whence, on the approach of 

 evening, they wing their way, with 

 arrow-like swiftness, to the vv'ater-holes 

 many miles distant." 



"In the maps the name of 'Pigeon 

 Ponds,' given to welcome pools of 

 water, still marks the mode of their 

 first discovery," so says Dixon in his 

 account of the Bronze-wing. He also 

 gives us some of the experiences of 

 Captain Sturt, whose vivid pen-pic- 

 tures make us realise how valuable is 

 this trait of the Australian pigeons in 

 unconsciously guiding those travellers 

 in need of water. 



To understand how great that need 

 is, let us hear first what Captain Sturt 

 says about his personal experience of 

 the heat of Australia during his all but 

 successful effort to reach the centre of 

 the continent. 



He says: "Stones that had lain in 

 the sun were with difficulty held in the 

 hand; the men could not always keep 

 their feet within the glowing stirrujDS ; 

 if a match fell to the ground it ignited, and the 

 earth was thoroughly heated to the depth of three 

 or four feet ; their hair ceased to grow, and their 

 nails were as brittle as glass ; the atmosphere on 

 some occasions was so rarified that they felt a 

 difficulty in breathing, and a burning sensation on 

 the crown of the head as if an hot iron had been 

 there ; they were obliged to bury their wax candles 

 to keep them from melting away ; they planted 

 seeds in the bed of the creek, but the sun burnt 



them to cinders the moment they appeared above 

 the ground." At three o'clock in the afternoon the 

 thermometer in the sun was 157 degrees. 



I should lilie to give you Captain Sturt's account 

 in his own words how he was greatly in need of 

 water and how he was guided to it by a pigeon, 

 but I have not, unfortunately, space to give it in 

 detail. It is very pathetic. He tells us how, when 

 they were badly in need of water, none of the 

 horses would eat, save one called "Traveller." 

 They all collected round him as he sat under a tree, 

 and his own horse pulled his hat off his head to call 

 his attention to their thirst, but no water was to be 

 had; so the men saddled again and they proceeded 

 onwards. At the head of the valley poor 

 "Traveller" dropped down dead, and when they 

 finally came to the place where they fully expected 

 to find water it was gone. Captain Sturt poked 

 his finger in the mud, and moistened his lips with 

 a little water that oozed into the holes. 

 "Suddenly a pigeon topped the sand-hill — it being 



The Bronze-winged Pigeon. 



Photo by Mr. D. Seih-Smilh. 

 From The AvicuHural Magazine. 



the first bird we had seen — a solitary bird; passed 

 us like lightning, it pitched for a moment, and a 

 moment only, on the plain, about a quarter of a 

 mile from us, and then flew away." Mr. Sturt 

 marked the spot, and there was water — water that 

 in their most desperate condition meant life. 



Temminck tells us that the Bronze-wing makes 

 its nest "in the holes of trees at a slight distance 

 from the ground, often on the ground itself, and 

 lays two white eggs; their principal food is a small 



