UNWARY PIGEONS. 



45 



by the presence of man. The difference in this respecc 

 between them and any of the other birds hvin^ here 

 (excluding the gannets and frigate-birds) is so striking 

 that it could not fail to be obvious to the least observant. 

 The pigeon in other parts of the West Indies, such as 

 Jamaica, is extremely shy and suspicious, practically as 

 much so as our European wood-pigeon. Gosse, in his 

 fascinating " Birds of Jamaica," says " Wary exceedingly, 

 the bald pate, from his seat among the topmost twigs, 

 discerns the gunner, himself unseen, and intimates his 

 vicinity only by the rushing of his strong wings, as he 

 shoots off to some distant part of the grove." Yet the 

 bald-pate of Swan Islands, especially the eastern island 

 (they are getting a little wary on the western one because 

 the islanders shoot them) are noticeably and surprisingly 

 tame as compared with those on other islands. On the 

 eastern island they are, indeed, so confiding that I shot 

 eight with a small forty bore collecting gun, hardly more 

 than a toy, in about twenty minutes. I did this, not for 

 sport ! but because I thought at the time they differed 

 from the birds of other islands, and I wanted a series to 

 make sure. There was no sport in it. They seemed 

 hke helpless innocents. 



The bald-pate is a fine handsome pigeon. Its general 

 colour is greyish-blue. The crown is pure white, running 

 into a band of dark purple at the back of the neck. On 

 each side of the neck is a beautiful " cape " formed by 

 feathers of metalhc green, rounded at the ends, bordered 

 with black, and having a neatly patterned effect. The 

 pupil (iris) of its eye is white, and the bare space round 

 the eyes is also white. There is nothing pecuHar about 

 its nidification. It was quite a common bird on the 

 islands, and one could hardly go anywhere in the woods 

 without hearing its plaintive homelike notes Cbo-rl, 

 coo-coo ; Coo-ri — coo-c5o," repeated over and over again> 



Coming hot and tired from long tramps in the clearings, 

 where the tropical sun blazed down in the afternoons 

 with a quiet but relentless fury, we often sat ourselves 



