Birds of Celebes: Peristeridae. 
661 
Duivenbode, the owner' paid it a visit; and just as the schooner was coming 
to an anchor, a bird was seen flying from sea-ward Avhich fell into the water 
exhausted before it could reach the shore. A boat was sent to pick it up, and 
it was found to be a Nicobar pigeon, which must have come from New Guinea, 
and flown a hundred miles, since no such bird previously inhabited the island”. 
Mr. Woodford (27) records a similar fact: “One flew on board and settled for 
some seconds, when we were distant forty miles to the westward of Renual Island 
— an outlying island that can be hardly said to belong to the Solomon group 
at all”. The species may ultimately prove to be a sort of “gipsy migrant , like 
Myristicivm'a bicolor, its local wanderings being due to the ripening of fruits and 
seeds on difi’erent islands. Mr. Geisler says that this is the case on Pigeon 
Island off the Gazelle Peninsula, N. Britain. AViglesworth has wrongly suggested 
that it appears to possess “an extraordinarily flxed, invariable constitution to 
be less plastic than other species under the conditions which promote change, 
perhaps on account of its relatively greater antiquity” {Aves Polynesiae, Intro- 
duction), but now that its wandering habits are known, it will be seen that 
there is no reason to suppose it to be less variable than other Pigeons. 
The gizzard of the Nicobar Pigeon, as was first shown by Sir W. Flower 
(4) and later remarked by Davison in the Nicobars (13), is furnished interiorly 
with two long disks, “between which is a single pebble usually of white quartz 
a little larger than a fresh pea”. “The stomachs of all those I shot on Katchall 
contained seeds very similar to a prune stone, more or less broken up, but on 
Batty Malve they seemed to have eaten a whitish seed about the size of the 
head of a blanket pin”. Prof. Newton (f3) draws attention to the remarks of 
Garrod (P. Z. S. 1878, 102) and of Verreaux and Des Murs on the correspond- 
ing “nut-cracking” gizzards of Carpophaga latrans of Fiji and of Phaenorhina goliath 
of New Caledonia. 
ORDER GALLINAE. 
The young of the Gallinae are hatched on the ground, are covered with 
dowm and are capable of running about and feeding themselves almost immedi- 
ately on leaving the egg; or, in the case of the Megapodes, they are hatched 
by the heat of the sun or other agency in the ground in which the egg has 
been buried by the parents, and they are in some (if not in all) cases capable 
of flying on leaving the egg. These peculiarities distinguish the Gallinae from 
the orders hitherto treated of, though not from the Turnices, Ralli, Grallae, 
and others. 
The Gallinae are of terrestrial habits, walking and running well — needless 
to say never hopping; in diet they are phytophagous and probably feed also 
