PIGEON. 



21 



of digestion, it is not rendered less fit for vegetation ;* from hence it 

 is that these birds, flying from island to island, sow and spread the 

 nutmeg in all of them, which they are known to frequent.t Called 

 in Java, Bouron-dora-louw, which signifies Sea Pigeon, being found 

 near the sea, and building in the rocks; probably allied to the last. 



A. — A Variety of this, or what I take to be so, is wholly white, 

 except just round the eye, where it is black ; the quills are also black, 

 but the tail is white ; bill and legs pale red. 



Inhabits China. — From the drawings of the late Capt. Broadley. 

 In a similar drawing, in the Collection of Mr. Dent, the eye is not 

 surrounded with black ; the tail is white, but the feathers edged with 

 black ; the sides over the thighs are also mixed with black. 



9— AURICULAR PIGEON. 



Columba Auricularis, Colombe Oricou, Temm. Pig.fol. pi. 20. Id. 8vo. i. p. 236. 



SIZE of the Biset Pigeon ; length eleven inches. Bill black ; 

 plumage in general white; at the forehead a tuberculated, red, fleshy 



* Son. Voy. He seems to doubt the Pigeon being able to swallow a nutmeg, observing, 

 that some of our tame Pigeons have been choaked with small horse beans. 



f A Pigeon was found, with two nutmegs in its stomach and craw, still surrounded with 

 the scarlet covering, or mace, at the Isle of Rotterdam. — Forst. Voy. ii. 332. Ditto Reply, 

 35. In a letter from Ceylon, in 1800, it is said, that while a neighbouring nation was in 

 possession of the Banda, or Spice Islands, not a Pigeon or Dove was to be found there, 

 although, in former years, they abounded in these birds; having been all destroyed, from 

 the apprehension of their swallowing the nutmeg and clove whole, and voiding them in the 

 same state on the adjacent islands ; thereby carrying the seed of an article, which the owners 

 held exclusively to themselves. By this means, too, is the cinnamon propagated at Ceylon, 

 by certain wild Doves, thence called Cinnamon-Eaters, which occasion the rise of so many 

 young trees along the road, that they look like a forest. — Forrest's Voy. 345. (no description 

 of bird). Pigeons are also said to be the propagators of the Loranthus Stelis, of Linnaeus, 

 feeding on the berries, and voiding the stones on the trunks of trees, where they grow.— 

 Parkins. Voy. p. 38. 



