Order COLUMB^*. 



Bill with the basal half straight and soft, covered with a fleshy skin, in which the nostrils 

 are placed ; the tip horny, curved, and vaulted inside ; gape wide and smooth. Wings pointed, 

 of 10 feathers. Tail variable in the number of its feathers, usually of 12 or 14, in some 

 16. Legs short, feathered to the knee ; the tarsus fleshy and very stout, scutate in front, except 

 in one genus. Toes stout, flattened beneath, forming a broad sole. 



Sternum narrow, with a high keel, and two notches on each side of it in the posterior 

 margin ; chest with a large double crop. 



Fam. COLUMBID^. 



Bill rather narrow, the gape moderately wdde, the horny tip less in extent than the fleshy 

 base ; nostrils opening to the front. Wings pointed. Tail broad, short, and even in some, long 

 and graduated in others, of 12 feathers. Tarsus somewhat lengthened and not very stout. 

 Toes lengthened ; lateral toes subequal ; the hallux moderately short. 



Of both terrestrial and arboreal habits. 



Genus PALUMBTJS. 

 Bill moderately stout, the tip well curved ; nostrils placed in a groove and beneath a 

 capacious membrane. Wings with the 3rd quill the largest, and the 1st shorter than the 4th. 

 Tail shorter than the wings, even or rounded at the tip. Tarsus moderately stout, shorter than 

 the middle toe, with transverse scutes in front. Toes rather slender ; middle toe lengthened. 



PALI7MBFS T0EEINGT0NLE. 



(THE CEYLON WOOD-PIGEON.) 

 (Peculiar to Ceylon.) 



Palumbus elphinstoni, var., Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1851, xx. p. 178. 



Palumbus torringtonii, Kelaart, Prodromus, Faun. Zeylan. p. 107 (1852); Jerdon, B. of Ind. 



iii. p. 466 (1864) ; Blyth, Ibis, 1867, p. 306 ; Hume, Nests and Eggs, iii. p. 499 (1875). 

 Carpophaga (Palumbus) torringtonii (Kel.), C. elphinstonii, var., apud Blyth, Kelaart, Prodr., 



Cat. p. 130 (1852). 



* This interesting order of birds is chiefly developed in the great Malayan Archipelago, its focus, as Mr. Wallace, in 

 his able article on the Pigeons (Ibis, 1865), terms it, being in the Austro-Malayan region, comprised of New Guinea, the 

 island of Celebes, and the Solomon Islands. In the article in question it is shown that out of the three hundred and odd 

 species known, no less than 118 (some of these are now united, but, on the other hand, others have since been discovered) 

 inhabit the Malay Archipelago, while on the vast continent of America there are only 80, and in Africa less than 40, 

 Australia possessing 43. Mr. "Wallace's remarks on this condition of the distribution of Pigeons are as follows : — " These 

 numbers show that the Malay Archipelago is preeminently the metropolis of the Pigeon tribe. It is now well known, how- 



