419 
P I G 
and flout, very different from the pigeons. In fhort, its 
tefemblance to the pigeons is merely in the ftiape of the 
bill and the nature of the plumage. We need not repeat 
the general remarks, which apply to this fpecies Jn parti* 
cular more than to any other; and by which it will be 
feen that this fpecies might well be ranked among the 
partridges. For a neft they make a little bole in the 
ground, which they line with bits of flick and dried herbs ; 
the female lays fix or eight rufous-white eggs, which the 
male and female fit upon alternately: the young run as 
foorf as they are out of the fliell, and from that time never 
quit their father and mother, who call them inceflantly if 
they ftray, and proteft them under their wings from cold 
or from the fcorching heat of the fun. Their firft food 
is the eggs of ants, foft infers, and worms, which the 
parents fhow them, but which they are foon able to find 
for themfelves; as they get bigger, they feed upon all 
kinds of grain, feeds, berries, and infefts; but they do 
not fe pa rate from the old ones till they pair, and begin 
to raife a family themfelves. 
This fpecies is about the fize of our turtle-doves but 
is of a ftouter form, and looks much fhorter, on account 
of the fliortnefs and breadth of the tail. A patch of 
naked red fkin goes round part of the forehead, the bill 
and throat, and extends backward to the ears; at the 
throat hangs a flefliy flat barbie, or wattle, of the fame 
red colour. The head, cheeks, neck, and bread, are of a 
Hate-colour, darker or lighter in certain pofitions; the 
fcapulars and upper wing-coverts are filver-grey, and on 
the latter is a large patch of white. The belly and red 
of the under parts are pure white. The tail, which is 
very fliort and rounded, is brown above and blackifh 
beneath, the parts concealed by the coverts being white. 
The bill is red at the bafe, the red black; the eyes are 
enclofed in a double circle, the inner yellow, the outer 
red ; the legs and feet are vinous red, the nails black. 
The female is lefs than the male; her colours are not 
glofly, and the white patch on the wing-coverts is want¬ 
ing; neither is there any red wattle. This fpecies inha¬ 
bits the interior fettlements at the foot qf the rough hills 
of the Namaquois country; a dry and arid traft, deferred 
by the pigeons in general, who, it is well known, frequent 
cool and watered places.-—Colombi-galiine, Vaillant, 
N° 278. 
86. Columba coturnix, the quail-pigeon. Lefs than 
the C. montana, or partridge-pigeon, vol. iv. p. 816. 
which it greatly refembles (as the partridges refemble the 
quails) in external characters and habits ; with this dif¬ 
ference, that the quail-pigeons unite in great flocks, the 
partridge-pigeons in final 1 ones, confiding of one family 
only. 
This is an African fpecies, inhabiting the mountains 
of the Great Namaquois; but Vaillant fuppofes it not 
to raife its young in that barren trafl, not having met 
■with any neft. The male is about the fize of the quails 
■of Europe ; it refembles the pigeons only in the form of 
the bill and the nature of the plumage. The top of the 
head and all the upper furface are of a bright cinnamon- 
red, each feather however tipped with brown ; the fore¬ 
head and throat are white; the front and Tides of the 
neck are of a fight vinaceous colour, with black fcales 
bordered above with white; the middle of the fternum, 
the belly, the thighs, and under tail-coverts, are faint red; 
the wing-feathers, which are red on the upper furface, 
are blackifh within, which has a rich effeft. The bill is 
yellowifh-brown; the feet and eyes reddifli. The female 
•is rather lefs, and her colours not fo bright.— Colombi- 
caille, Vaillant's African Birds, vol. vi. p. 116. N° 283. 
Vaillant defcribes feveral other fpecies which he confi¬ 
de rs as new; but we think they are all, and even fome 
of thofe we have here given, referrible to fpecies already 
known, and defcribed in our fourth volume. 
PIG'EON (Peter-Charles-Francis), curate of St. Peter 
du Regard, in the diocefe of Bayeux, was one of the emi¬ 
grant priefls who came to England at the beginning of 
EON. 
the French revolution, and were provided for in a large 
manfion called the King’s Houle at Winchefter. He 
was born in Lower Normandy, of honeft and virtuous 
parents, and of a decent fortune. His inclinations early- 
led him to embrace the ecclefiaftical ftate, from which 
neither the folicitations of his friends, nor the profpedt of 
a more ample fortune on the death of his elder brother, 
could withdraw him. The fweetnefs of temper was fo 
remarkable, and fo clearly depicted on his countenance, 
as to have gained him the efteem and affeflion of fuch 
of the inhabitants of Winchefter as by any means had 
become acquainted with him. In 1789, the year of the 
French revolution, M. Pigeon was promoted to a curacy, 
or rather a reftory, in the diocefe of Bayeux, called the 
parifh of St. Peter du Regard, near the town of Conde fur 
Noereau. He quickly gained the good-will and the pro¬ 
tection of his parifhioners; but a Jacobin-club in the 
above-mentioned town took various means of harafling 
and perfecuting him, and certain other priefls in the 
neighbourhood, who had from motives of confcience re- 
f 11 fed the famous civic oath. It would be tedious to 
relate the many cruelties which were at different times 
exercifed upon him, and the imminent danger of lofing 
his life to which he was expofed, by the blows that were 
inflicted on him, by his being thrown into water, and 
being obliged to wander in woods and other folitary 
places, without any food or place to lay his head, in order 
to avoid his perfecutors. We may form fome judgment 
of the fpirit of his perfecutors from the following circum- 
ftance. Being difappointed on a particular occafion in 
the fearch they were making after M. Pigeon, with the 
view of amuling themfelves with his fufferings, they 
made themfelves amends by feizing his mother, a refpedl- 
able lady of 74. years of age, and his two fillers, whom 
they placed upon afies with their faces turned backwards, 
obliging them in derifion to hold the tails of thefe ani¬ 
mals. Thus they were conduced in pain and ignominy 
throughout the whole town of Conde, for no other alleged 
crime except being the neared relations of M. Pigeon. 
At length the decree for tranfporting all the ecclefiaftics 
arrived ; and this gentleman, with leveral others, after 
having been ft ripped of all their money, was (hipped from 
Port Beftin, and landed at Portfmouth, where he was 
fhortly after received into the eftablifhment at Foxton, 
and, upon that being diffolved in order to make room 
for prisoners of war, into the King’s Houfe at Winchefter. 
Being of a ftudious turn, he was accuftomed, as many 
of his brethren alfo were, to betake himfelf to the neigh¬ 
bouring lanes and thickets for the fake of greater folitude. 
With this view having, about ten o’clock in the morning, 
Aug. 28, 1793, retired to a certain little valley, on the 
north-ealt lide of a place called Oram’s Arbour, the fame 
place where the county eledlions for Hampfliire are held, 
he was there found, between three and four o’clock in 
the afternoon, murdered, with the upper part of his 
fkull abloluteiy broken from the lower part, and a large 
hedge-flake, covered with blood, lying by him, as were 
the papers on which he had been tranicribing a (ermon, 
with the hearing of which he Had been much edified, and 
the fermon itfelf which he was copying, together with his 
pen, imbrued in blood. His watch was carried away, 
though part of the chain, which had by fome means been 
broken, was left behind. At firft the fufpicion of this 
cruel murder fell upon the French democrats, who, to 
the number of 200, were prisoners of war at the neigh¬ 
bouring town of Alresford, as one of that number, who 
had broken his parole, had, about three weeks before, 
been taken up in Winchefter, and both there and at 
Alresford had repeatedly threatened to murder his uncle, 
-a prieft, whom he underftood to be then at Winchefter, 
not without fervent willies of having it in his power to 
murder the whole eftablifhment, confiding of more than 
600 perfons. However, as no French prifoner was feen 
that day in the neighbourhood of Winchefter, as none 
of them were known to have left Alresford, it is evidently 
3 realonabie 
