162 WOOD PIGEON. 
a sort of milk. The male and female both take their turns 
in hatching the eggs and in feeding the young, the former 
sitting from six to eight hours—from nine or ten in the 
morning to about three or four in the afternoon. 
The first brood are abroad by the beginning of May; the 
second in the end of July. Mr. Macgillivray has known the 
young unfledged in October, and a pair with down tips to 
the feathers on the 26th. of that month; Mr. Hewitson, too, 
so late as the middle of September; and R. A. Julian, Esq., 
Jun., on the 15th. of that month, 1851, at Minchenay, near 
Holbeton, Devon; so also EH. C. Nunn, Esq., at Trevan Wood, 
near Diss, Norfolk, on the 25th. of the same month in the 
same year. 
Male; weight, about twenty ounces; length, one foot five 
inches and a half to one foot six inches; bill, pale reddish 
orange yellow, red at the base, powdered over with a white 
dust; the cere almost white; iris, pale yellow; the eyelids 
yellowish red, the bare part above them blue. Head, crown, 
and neck on the back, greyish blue; on the sides some of 
the feathers are bright green and some cream-coloured, and 
below purple. The ring around, which is glossy white, and 
composed on each side of twelve or fourteen scale-like feathers, 
is begun to be assumed at about the end of two months, 
and a fortnight suffices for its full development. In front 
the neck is brownish purple, fading towards the breast and 
sides into light greyish blue. Nape, greyish blue; chin, bluish 
grey; throat, purple red; back above, greyish blue, tinged 
with brown; below, light greyish blue. 
Extent of the wings from two feet four to two feet five 
inches. ‘The first quill feather is nearly as long as the fourth, 
the second and third the longest; greater and lesser wing 
eoverts, dark bluish grey, the first four or five feathers of 
each white or partially white, forming a white bar, much the 
most conspicuous when the wings are spread. Primaries, 
greyish black, the outer edges narrowly white; tertiaries, dark 
bluish grey; greater and lesser under wing coverts, light 
greyish blue. The tail, of twelve feathers, is long and very 
broad, slightly rounded at the end, the two middle feathers 
bluish grey, the ends, for a third of the whole length, dark 
bluish grey, the others dull greyish blue in colour at the 
base, lighter in the middle, and greyish black at the end; 
underneath it is greyish black, with a band across the middle 
of bluish grey; upper tail coverts, light greyish blue. The 
