﻿PIGEON. 6ii 



greater wing coverts fartheft from the body are afh-coloured 

 within, and purplifh chefnut on the outfide and tip : quills deep 

 black ifh afh-colour : tail the fame, but of a light afh-colour at 

 the tip : the legs are blackilh *. 



This fpecies inhabits the Molucca IJles and New Guinea -, and Place anb 

 has been brought to England alive. Buffon mentions five having Mannbrb. 

 been at once alive in France. In fize it far exceeds any of the 

 Pigeon tribes but its form and manners tell us that it can 

 belong to no other. Indeed Briffon has placed it with the 

 Pbeafants ; and the Planches enluminees have copied that name j 

 but whoever has obferved it, cannot doubt in the leaft to which 

 it belongs. Its note is cooing and plaintive, like that of other 

 Pigeons, only more loud in proportion. The mournful notes of 

 thefe birds alarmed the crew of Bougainville f much, when in the 

 neighbourhood of them, thinking they were the cries of the hu- 

 man fpecies. In France they were never obferved to lay eggs, 

 nor in Holland, though they were kept for fome time : but Scopoli 

 affures us, that the mtyle approaches the female with the head 

 bent into the breaft, making a noife more like lowing than coo- 

 ing j and that they not only made a neft on trees, in the mena- 

 gery where they were kept, but laid eggs J. The neft was com- 

 pofed of hay and ftalks. The female never fate, but flood upon 



* Ed-wards fays they are whitifh, fpotted with red ; and Scopoli, that they 

 are afh-coloured. We may fuppofe, therefore, that they vary in different 

 birds. 



t V<&- P- 3 z6 - 



\ Dampier fays the egg is as big as that of a hen ; and that the bird builds in 



trees. 



the 



