74 MY FOREIGN DOVES AND PIGEONS. 
the world were something very new and strange, 
as indeed it must first seem to them when they 
leave the nest and come amongst other birds. I 
should consider the Brush Bronze-wing quite a 
hardy dove. 
PARTRIDGE BRONZE-WING 
(Geophaps scripta). 
Habitat.—North-Western and Eastern .\us- 
tralia, from Rockingham Bay through the interior 
to Victoria. 
Length.—\bout 12 inches. 
rather long in body. 
Colouring.—Adult male—pale brown above the 
upper part of the wings with paler tips to the 
feathers; on the lower half of the 
wings rich purplish-green metallic 
patches. The forehead is ashy, the 
face marked with black and white 
stripes, one stripe going beneath the 
eye, another behind it. The eye is 
black, surrounded with naked blue 
skin, and the corner of the eye reddish. 
The black on the face forms a 
crescent across the lowcr part of the 
throat, the flanks are white, the 
abdomen grey, the feet purplish 
crimson, The hen is like the cock, 
but slighter and rather smaller. The 
legs of this dove seem rather short in 
proportion to its size, but more fitted 
to a bird that keeps so much on the 
ground. 
PIGEON. 
Shape, rounded, but 
WILD LIFE. 
The flesh of the Partridge Bronze- 
wing, or as it is called in Australia, 
the Squatter pigeon, is considered 
delicious eating and equal in flavour 
to the Wonga-Wonga. Campbell 
speaks of this Bronze-wing going 
about in little flocks of five or six 
birds, and that it will run and squat down to hide 
itself when it suspects danger. Its nest, contrary 
to others of the pigeon tribe, is made in a hollow 
in the ground and lined with soft dead grass; the 
eggs are white and two in number. 
The Partridge pigeon breeds at almost any time 
of the vear, but usually from September or October 
onwards. The food consists of grass and seeds, 
and at certain seasons berries and insects. This 
bird can run with great specd, and when it 
‘squats’? will almost allow itself to be trodden on. 
If obliged to rise it flies off with a great noise and 
settles again, either on the plain or the oui- 
stretched branch of a tree, along which it squats 
like a night jar, in the same line as the limb. 
\ LIFE IN CAPTIVITY. 
This gentle little pigeon has not long been well 
known to English aviculturalists. One bird was 
presented to the Zoo in 1883, and in 1891 some 
eggs were laid (several other birds having been 
acquired since the original one) and hatched by a 
Barbary Turtle-dove; the young birds, however, 
only lived 14 days. 
To Mr. T. H. Newman, our greatest living 
authority on doves and pigeons, belongs the 
honour of raising the Partridge Bronze-wing to 
maturity (for the first time in England) in his own 
aviaries. Mr. Newman gives us a most full and 
interesting account of the nesting, from which I 
have only space to recount a few facts. 
PARTRIDGE BRONZE-WING PIGEON. 
Photo by Mr. D. Seth-Smith. 
From The Avicultural Magazine. 
His birds spent nearly all their time on the 
ground, and would roost in a little group, their 
heads pointing in different directions, their tails 
coming close together in the centre. The old birds 
were greatly attached to each other, were seldom 
far apart, and kept up a running conversation in 
a low ‘tcrooning’’ tone. 
These pigeons have a way of rising on tip-toe 
and giving their wings a vigorous flap. The cock 
used to go throurh some most amusing little ways 
when he met the hen he would raise his head and 
back feathers, elevate his tail and wings, and 
thrice repeat a hurried coo. 
I had a pair of these Bronze-wings myself, and 
loved to watch the cock going through his 
