Columbia— Pigeons. 
SUB-ORDER II.— RASORES (Scratchers). 
THE Pigeon family — one of the most widely distributed of all the families of birds, being common to every part 
of the terrestrial globe except the extreme Arctic and Antarctic Zones — was long distinguished as a distinct 
Order, under the one generic term, Columbce ; but, under a more philosophical classification, has been 
regarded as forming a secondary order to the Gallinacea? (or Clamatores), under the designation of columbacece 
(or Gemitores), to which classification I defer; still, it may be remarked, that those systematists who have 
proposed a separate classification for the members of this important family, have good general grounds for their 
decision, were the extraordinary claims of the Australian group, with their remarkable features of internal 
organization and their striking external characteristics, alone to be considered. 
The variety found in the generic and sub-generic groups is the more remarkable when the monogamous 
consistency of the whole family is duly appreciated. 
Though the external characteristics of such of the groups of this family as it has been found possible to 
domesticate have been largely interfered with by cross-breeding, still it remains a fact that very few of the 
members of the whole family submit to domestication, or will pair in confinement. 
Of the pigeons of Australia proper, there are found no less than twenty-four species, divided into 
seventeen well-marked genera, of distinctly varied external form and character of plumage. 
These twenty-four species are, again, sub-divisible into two great classes, habitually separate, of which 
the one is the Gouridce, or Ground-feeding, and the other the Treronidce, or Tree-feeding — each specially 
and admirably adapted by nature to its habitat and manner of life, and, consequently, possessing well-defined, 
individual habits as opposite as their designations would convey. 
Of the first — the Ground-feeding, Seed-eating Pigeons, such as the Bronzewing (Phaps Chalcoptera) 
and Wonga-wonga (Leucosarcia picataj — the characteristics are long and slender tarsi, with toes well adapted 
for running and scraping, small gullets, strong pectoral muscles, and fully-developed wings, adapted to their 
requirements for continued and rapid flight over vast tracts of country, where, frequently, owing to capriciousness 
of climate, food and water are scarce and much ground has to be traversed to provide their daily wants. 
In the Tree-feeding, Pruit-eating Pigeons — whose perpetual home is in the tree-tops, and whose longest 
journeys are only a succession of short flights from one belt of scrub to another— the tarsi are short and stout, the 
claws long, with an opposing thumb, formed for prehension and suited for perching and grasping, so enabling 
them to obtain their food in almost any posture, swinging upon the topmost twig of some lofty tree or depending, 
breast uppermost, from some pendulous, far-reaching branch, as occasion may demand. Of these, the Plock 
{Carpophaya leucomela), the Green (Megaloprepia magnified), and the Top-knot (Lopholaimus antarcticus) 
Pigeons may be cited as typical illustrations. Their voracious apj^etites are accommodated by large gullets and 
gapes, so muscularly elastic as to admit of their swallowing, with ease, berries and fruits of a size that would 
choke a Ground-feeder. 
The home of the Bronzewing and its fellow species lies amid the expansive plains of the interior, where 
the general monotony of the landscape is often only relieved by the sombre pine or the sweet-scented myall, and 
dense thickets of stunted trees ; among the fertile hills of the coast, and in the picturesque pink and white 
heather of the seaside moors, where the ti-tree and honeysuckle flourish in congenial poverty of soil. Amongst 
such wilds as these are the birds to be found from year to year, their strong, swift, and long-enduring j)OAvers of 
flight specially fitting them to traverse these enormous wastes, and their very presence giving an air of life 
and animation to the otherwise still scenery. 
