16 



6 



uncommon. The two black bars on the wings, and single black bar on the tail, with the white 

 on the edges of the outer tail-feathers, were present in all the tame birds I have examined. The 

 permanence of colouring may be owing to the circumstance that no pains whatever are taken -to 

 improve the breed. Each town and village has many dove-cotes, which are usually the joint property 

 of several persons ; the Pigeons are only kept for their dung, and allowed to shift for themselves. 

 In some districts, as at Sioot, it is marvellous the numbers seen crowding round these mud-built 

 cotes, or feeding in the fields. The most common domestic variety answers to the Columba 

 schimperi of Bonaparte ; but individuals in all respects agreeing with Columba livia and Columba 

 schimperi may also be met with among the rocks. No doubt the stragglers from the towns often 

 take to the wild life ; indeed, at best they are only half domesticated in the dove-cotes, where 

 I have seldom seen a pied or white Pigeon. The many-coloured varieties are, however, reared 

 in the native houses, and sometimes join flocks of the other; but they rarely interbreed. From 

 these circumstances it would appear that the domestic Pigeon of Egypt has reverted very much 

 towards its original wild state. On one of the walls of the Temple of Medinet Haboo is a 

 sculpture of the time of Rameses III., B.C. 1297, representing that famous monarch as having 

 just assumed the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The procession is seen moving on in regal 

 state, and in all the pomp and splendour of the time, whilst a priest is letting off four Carrier 

 Pigeons to announce the glad tidings to every quarter of the globe. This is very interesting, as 

 it shows Pigeons were then used for the purpose of conveying information. According to 

 Horapollo the flesh of Pigeons was greatly esteemed, and there are records of their having been 

 eaten as early as B.C. 3000." 



In Algeria this Pigeon appears to be by no means uncommon on the southern slope of the 

 Atlas, where Taczanowski met with it ; and Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., says (Ibis, 1871, p. 295) 

 of it, " Common in the Mzab, and very easy to shoot, and not nearly so difficult to skin as 

 some Pigeons. I almost invariably observed them in pairs on the rocks close to the gardens, 

 but not actually in the palm trees, where all the Doves were. I observed some dark-coloured 

 varieties among these Cliff-Pigeons at Boghari, doubtless caused by domestic ones which had 

 wandered away to breed with them. One specimen was shot which, in the colour of the 

 lower part of the back, approximated to Columba schimperi." M. Favier says that it is the 

 most numerous of the Pigeons about Tangier, living in the rocks and even in the ramparts 

 of the town both in a wild and in a domestic state ; and it is found on the mainland of Africa 

 down to Senegambia and Sierra Leone. I have examined the type of Columba gymnocyclus, 

 Gray, from Senegambia, and I cannot see that it should be separated from Columba livia. It is 

 rather dark in colour, about as dark as ordinary examples of so-called Columba intermedia from 

 India, has the white patch on the rump very restricted, and there is rather a large bare space 

 round the eye ; but otherwise it does not differ from ordinary examples of Columba livia. Of 

 islands the Rock-Dove is found on the Azores, Madeira, Canaries, Cape-Verd Islands, and 

 St. Helena. Mr. Godman says (Ibis, 1872, p. 218) it is "very common in the Canaries, 

 Madeira, and the Azores, and is also abundant on the Desertas. It breeds in the cliffs over the 

 sea. In all three groups of islands this species is very variable in colour. The greater part are 

 exceedingly dark all over ; some have white above the tail, while others want it ; some are like 



