18 
COLUMBID^. 
the souths and generally singly, never more than two toge- 
ther ; very few alighted. On the 24th the vessel was, at sunset, 
90 miles E. of Sicily, Syracuse being the nearest land : on the 
27th, 45 miles from Zante, and 60 west of the Morea. On the 
29th of April one was seen near Navarino ; and another on the 
6th of May in the island of Syra :--at the end of this month, I 
observed numbers among the light and tender foliage in the 
spacious gardens of the old seraglio at Constantinople. I had 
remarked the Egyptian turtle dove {Col.cegyptiaca,'h'd.^^ a few days 
before, amid the sombre but magnificent cypresses, which (attain- 
ing apparently to 80 feet) rival the Lombardy poplar in' altitude, 
and tower — a forest of evergreen spires — above the very exten- 
sive Turkish and Armenian cemeteries of Smyrna. 
The Passengeh Pigeon {Columba migratoy'ia) is recorded by Dr. 
Pleming as having been taken in Scotland, and is said to have been 
subsequently noticed in the same country. But as the species is occa- 
sionally brought to the British Islands in vessels and kept by pigeon- 
fanciers, it seems to me that the individuals alluded to may probably 
have escaped from confinement. There is no doubt, however, that this 
species could better cross the Atlantic than some others which are 
considered to have done so. The passenger pigeon is also said to have 
been met with in Norway and Eussia.^ 
The Collaeed or African Turtle Dove, Columba risoria, Linn, 
(a bird of a buffish-brown, or deep “ stone colour,” with a narrow 
black collar encircling the hinder part of the neck), is much kept 
by bird-fanciers in this country, and often called simply turtle dove. 
I remarked this species in 1826 to be domesticated like our common 
pigeon at the Hague in Holland, where it was seen flying about the 
city. I have likewise observed it in some of the towns of Italy. 
Temminck, Man d’Ornit. de I’Eur. part iv. p. 311. 
