Subclass SCHIZOGNATH.E. 



Order I. COLUMBiE. 

 Family COLUMBIA. 



Genus COLUMBA. 



Columba, Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 282 (1766). 

 Palumbus apud Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 107 (1829). 

 Palumbcena apud Bonaparte, Cat. Parzud. p. 9 (1856). 

 Trocaza apud Bonaparte, Compt. Rend, xliii. p. 837 (1856). 



The Pigeons must decidedly be ranged near the Gallinaceous birds, though some authors have 

 placed them in quite distinct divisions and apart. Sundevall (who divides our birds into two 

 large groups — the one, which he terms Gymnopasdes, containing all those which are, when 

 hatched, naked and helpless, and the other, called by him Dasypaedes, embracing those which 

 are covered with down on emerging from the egg and are more or less able to take care of 

 themselves) places the Pigeons amongst the Gymnopsedes, separating them from the Gallinse 

 by the Accipitres. In Professor Huxley's classification, which I have followed as nearly as 

 possible, the Pigeons, together with their close allies the Sand-Grouse, form the first order of 

 the Schizognathse, being followed by the Galling — a position which is clearly the most natural 

 one for them. 



The Pigeons inhabit the Pakearctic, Ethiopian, Oriental. Australian, Nearctic, and Neotropical 

 Regions, six species being found in the Western Pakearctic Eegion. They inhabit both open and 

 wooded localities, and the mountains as well as the plains, according as they find an abundance 

 of food. They have a strong, swift, and protracted flight ; walk with ease, taking short steps, 

 sometimes running quite fast. Their note is a deep coo ; and both sexes utter this note. They 

 nestle on trees or bushes, amongst the rocks, and even on the ground, and deposit two pure- 

 white elliptical eggs. The young birds, when first hatched, are nearly naked, being covered but 

 sparingly with thin, soft down, are quite unable to do any thing for themselves, and are fed with 

 vegetable substances softened in the crop of the old birds, and which the parent birds introduce 

 into the mouths of their young with their bills. 



The food of the Pigeons consists entirely of vegetable substances of various kinds ; and they 

 drink very regularly, usually early in the morning and late in the evening. 



Columba livia, the type of the genus, has the bill rather short, straight, slender, the upper 

 mandible having at the base two soft tumid bare substances over the nostrils ; culmen depressed 

 towards the tip, which is obtuse, but thin-edged; nostrils linear, placed in the lower anterior 

 portion of the nasal membrane; wings long, full, the second quill longest; tail moderate, 

 slightly rounded ; legs short, strong ; tarsus anteriorly scutellate, posteriorly scui'fy ; toes mode- 

 rate, scutellate ; claws short, compressed, arched, rather acute ; oesophagus dilated and expanded 

 into a large two-lobed crop, below which it narrows. 



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