160 



ORNITHOLOGY OF NEPAL. 



are other genera recently instituted, such as Ptilinopus, Peristera and 

 Ectopistes, it will not be necessary for me to take more notice of them on 

 the present occasion than by this mere allusion, made only to show that 

 I have not overlooked them. 



The remarkable bird which I am now about to introduce to the notice 

 of Zoologists, unites the bill and wings of Goura with the feet of Vinago. 

 This, as its general description, is strictly accurate ; and therefore I presume 

 it will be allowed that the species could not be introduced without violence 

 into any existing genus.'* I shall therefore consider it as the type of a new 

 one, to be reduced to a sub-genus, or wholly rejected, according to the dis- 

 cretion of the learned. All persons must allow with Mr. Swainson that this 

 manner of introducing new species, at least insures an unusually accurate 

 acquaintance with them as species. For the rest, until it has been decided, 

 whether the Pigeons constitute an order, a family, or a genus, I suppose 

 we may not look for very intelligible (so called) generic characters. As 

 to the objection to a genus founded on one species, it appears to me that 

 any person who carefully distinguishes a striking modification of form, 

 may reasonably anticipate that very many recorded species will be found to 

 belong to it, so soon as our knowledge of the (in this case) vast and pro- 

 miscuous heap of them, comes to exceed a faint notion of their mere colours 

 and size. 



Sub-family. — Vinagin^ or Tree Pigeons. 

 Genus or Sub-genus— I>vc\jj.a. 7wbis. — Dukul of the Nipalese. (generice) 

 Character of tlie genus bill equal to the head, straight, cylindric, 

 very feeble ; both mandibles membranous for three-fourths from the gape ; 

 tip of the upper mandible gently inclined— of the lower, strongly compress- 

 ed ; uteres broad, linear, obliquely transverse, central ; their groove faint ; 

 their tect s^ibtumid. 



* If the Columbidce bevegardetl as a family, divided into the three sub-families Gourince, 

 VinagincE, and Columbince, I p\i,x;e this bird at the entrance of the second from the first of 

 these sub-families. 



