Part 32

When the vernal rains have copiously descended, the “negro-yam” sends out plentifully its young and tender shoots: the tips of these, with the unopened leaves and buds, are particularly agreeable to this exquisite bird, and it may often be shot at that season in the grounds of the mountain slopes. It is, however, then in poor condition.

By an Act of the Colonial Legislature, 10 Ann. xvi. 3, wild pigeons were forbidden to be killed in the parishes of St. Catherine or St. John’s, or on any island or kay, in the months of May, June, and July, under a penalty of forty shillings, or slaves to have thirty-nine lashes. Since the abolition of slavery, this, as well as many other laws, of similarly oppressive character, has been repealed.

Robinson found in one, the hard perforated seeds of the small palmetto-thatch. He mentions also, that in the autumn they owe their fatness to feeding on the fruit of the trumpet-tree, wild-raspberries, and wild star-apples. “It is remarkable,” he observes, “that the thighs [tibiæ?] are twice the length of the legs [tarsi?].”

The unwonted absence of the seasonal rains in the spring of 1846, rendered my efforts to obtain specimens of this fine bird fruitless, though I sent experienced persons many times to their usual haunts. I am therefore compelled to give a description from Dr. Robinson’s MSS. The preceding accounts, also, are the results, not of personal observation, but of careful and minute and repeated inquiries. Mr. Hill writes me that it has been abundant on the Highgate mountains since my departure.

Temminck asserts that the Ring-tail seems to be spread over the whole Antilles and Bahamas, but is not aware that it exists on the continent. Mauge found it at Porto Rico, where it is said to associate in flocks of many hundreds. (!)

BLUE PIGEON.

Columba rufina.

Columba rufina, +Temm.+ Pig. 24. Columba Cayanensis, +Bonn.+

Length 16 inches, expanse 26¹⁄₂, flexure 9¹⁄₄, tail 5³⁄₄, rictus 1⁴⁄₁₀, tarsus 1³⁄₁₀, middle toe 1⁹⁄₁₀ (including claw ⁵⁄₁₀). Iris consists of two circles, the inner one pale blue, the outer pale orange, the junction of the colours being marked by a line of dark blue. Orbits grey, edges of eyelids dull red. Beak black; feet lake-red. Head, neck, breast, and belly, dull reddish-purple. Scapulars and inter-scapulars dusky grey. Wings greyish-black; secondary greater coverts blue grey, edged with white; mid-coverts red-brown, merging into the surrounding colours. Back, rump, and tail, slate blue, the latter deepening towards the tip. Chin pale grey. Sides, thighs, under wing and tail-coverts, blue grey. Sexes barely differing.

The Blue Pigeon is found both on the mountains and in the lowlands. On the former it seems less to affect the deep forest, than such woods as skirt cultivated ground. When the purple berries of the phytolacca are ripe, about the end of the year, these pigeons flock in considerable numbers to feed at dawn and at evening. About the same time they are numerous in the lowlands, for I have found them plentiful in the large morass that extends along the shore from Crabpond to Parker’s Bay. They were flying about in pairs, for the most part, among the black mangrove trees, on whose seeds they were probably feeding. But I found in the stomachs of those which I shot, the white blossoms of a species of missletoe which is abundant there, and in one the bean-like seeds of, as I believe, the madjo-bitter (Picramnia). Early in February I visited the mangrove woods of Mount Edgecumbe morass, to seek these birds. They were rather numerous, but alighted only on the summits of the tallest trees. Finding that they were very shy, I seated myself and remained quietly watching. Thus I obtained several successive shots, as they appeared to come round to the spot periodically, perhaps once in half-an-hour. Two or three were in company, and as they flew from tree-top to tree-top, their movements were announced by a guttural jug, jug, and by the loud rushing of their powerful wings. Frequently one would chase another round the trees, playfully, which I conjectured to be a symptom of pairing.

The common note of the Blue Pigeon resembles somewhat the barking of a cur; bow-wow—wōw, the last syllable protracted and falling. It is much like the Sary-coat-blue of the Bald-pate, but the short second syllable is wanting.

For delicacy and flavour of flesh this species scarcely yields to its congener, and is but a little less in request. It is dark in hue, but exquisitely delicious, tender, juicy, and free from bitterness.

It is an arboreal bird, but not quite so exclusively as the Ring-tail. Like the Bald-pate, he is often shot, by forestalling him at his feeding tree, before day-break. In form he agrees with the bird just named; his legs and feet are stout and strong; his head and neck small and slender; the plumage of his nape forms a sort of ridge. M. Temminck, probably having never seen the bird alive, and not being aware of the very singular peculiarity of the iris mentioned in the note, has given his figure red eyes. The two colours impart a very unusual character to the physiognomy of the species; it is constant, not accidental.

About the end of April, I was informed of a Blue Pigeon’s nest on a lofty limb of an inaccessible cotton tree. It was a more substantial structure than those of its congeners, being made of dried grass, or similar material, as well as twigs. A Bald-pate had a nest on a contiguous tree, and the neighbouring birds were continually squabbling. I have never seen the eggs.

The Blue Pigeon is said to inhabit not only all the great islands of the West Indies, but also Guiana.

BALD-PATE.

(White-crowned Pigeon. +Bon.+)

Columba leucocephala. +Linn.+

Aud. pl. 177.

Length 16 inches, expanse 23¹⁄₂, flexure 7³⁄₄, tail 5¹⁄₂, rictus 1¹⁄₄, tarsus 1¹⁄₁₀, middle toe 2¹⁄₂. Irides cream-white; eyelids purplish flesh colour.

This fine dove is common in almost all situations, but chiefly affects the groves of pimento, which generally adorn the mountain pens. The sweet aromatic berries afford him abundant and delicious food during the pimento season; the umbrageous trees afford him a concealment suited to his shy and suspicious character; and on them his mate prefers to build her rude platform-nest, and rear her tender progeny. 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. In the breeding season, however, when alarmed from the nesting tree, he does not fly far, and soon returns; so that the sportsman, by concealing himself, and watching the bird’s return, may bring him down. When the pimento is out of season, he seeks other food; the berries of the sweetwood, the larger ones of the breadnut, and burn-wood, of the bastard cedar, and the fig, and the little ruddy clusters of the fiddle-wood, attract him. He feeds early in the morning, and late in the afternoon: large numbers resort to a single tree, (though not strictly gregarious,) and when this is observed, the sportsman, by going thither before dawn, and lying in wait, may shoot them one by one, as they arrive. In September and October they are in fine condition, often exceedingly fat and juicy, and of exquisite flavour. In March the clammy-cherry displays its showy scarlet racemes, to which the Bald-pates flock. The Hopping Dick, Woodpecker, and Guinea-fowl, feed also upon it. In April, Sam tells me he has seen as many as thirty, almost covering a tree, feeding on berries which he believes were those of the bully-tree. Late in the year they resort to the saline morasses, to feed on the seeds of the black-mangrove, which I have repeatedly found in the craw; I have even seen one descend to the ground beneath a mangrove, doubtless in search of the fallen seeds. In general, however, the Bald-pate is an arboreal pigeon, his visits to the earth being very rare. He often feeds at a distance from home; so that it is a common thing to observe, just before nightfall, straggling parties of two or three, or individuals, rushing along with arrowy swiftness in a straight line to some distant wood.

The Bald-pate is a noble bird; plump, yet of a graceful form; the iridescent scale-like feathers of his neck, with their black borders, are very striking: he is staid and sedate in manners, when sitting, and there is something of supercilious sternness in his countenance, which, combined with his snow-white head, always reminds me, strange as the comparison may appear, of the grand Bald-Eagle. His coo is Sary̆-coat-blūe, uttered with much energy, the second syllable short and suddenly elevated, the last a little protracted and descending.

Incubation takes place chiefly in the months of June and July. In Bluefields morass many nests are found on the tallest black-mangroves, and are much robbed by the negro youths, who rear the young for sale: the native pigeons being, more than any other birds, kept in cages by the Creoles. The nest is merely a very slight platform of dry twigs, rudely attached, on which two eggs are laid. They are of delicate whiteness, in form very regularly oval, and in dimensions 1¹⁄₂ inch by 1¹⁄₁₀. I never heard of its breeding on rocks.

I add a few particulars of some which I kept from early age. I shot a young one on the 2nd of September, breaking the tarsus; and about a week afterwards another was brought me which may have been rather older. The former appeared not to have finally left the nest. Both were exceedingly ugly; long-necked, thin-bodied, the head not well rounded, the fleshy part of the beak prominent, and its base unfeathered. The whole plumage was blackish ash-coloured, each feather slightly tipped with paler, and the feathers of the head terminating in little curled grey filaments, which added to the uncouth appearance of the birds. In a week or two I perceived these filaments were gradually disappearing, and about the beginning of October the small feathers began to clothe the base of the beak: these feathers were greyish-white, and at the same time the grey hue was beginning to spread up the forehead, I believe by the dropping of the black feathers, and their immediate replacement by the white ones. About this time also the general plumage began to assume the blue hue of the adult, in patches; and on the 12th of October, I first observed the beautiful iridescent feathers of the neck, but as yet only on one side. These notes refer to the elder; the other was about two weeks more backward. On the 16th, I first heard it coo; for some time it had now and then uttered a single note, but on this day it gave the whole Sary̆-coat-blūe, but short, and in a low tone; and that only once. By the end of November the white had spread over the whole crown as in the adult, but was not yet so pure or so smooth. A third, which I purchased in November, though a young one of the season, having been reared from the nest, was much more mature both in plumage and size. By the end of that month the crown of this one was perfectly in the adult plumage, the neck feathers complete on both sides, the body plump and smooth. This individual, when first put into the cage, was very cross, pecking at all the others, including some Pea-doves, whenever they came near him, and even stretching himself down from his perch to reach them as they walked under him. One or two of the Pea-doves suffered particularly, for he munched out their feathers by mouthfuls, laying bare a large portion of their backs. He soon became more reconciled, but never associated with them, never descending from his perch all day, except to feed or drink. The other Bald-pates walked about a good deal with the Pea-doves, and were rather playful. Any new object they would examine and lay hold of. Their cage, a capacious packing-box, was lined with paper; somehow or other, a bit of it was torn up; the Bald-pates were continually pulling at this, and were not content till they had stripped off a large space. A hole in the gauze front had been darned with thread; they would take the loose ends in their beaks and tug at them. Sometimes they would seize a stick or twig, and drag it about the cage. A White-belly, taken in a springe, and put with them, would not eat the Indian corn, with which they were fed, and was supplied with orange-pips: the Bald-pate would run up to the White-belly when feeding, and playfully endeavour to snatch the pips from him as he picked them up; when, however, he succeeded in getting possession of one, he immediately dropped it: it was only the fun he wanted. If I inserted my finger through the gauze, he would seize it with his beak, and, as it were, chew it, and tug at it in various directions, turning, and sometimes quite inverting, his head. He would always take a grain of corn from my hand, even if he did not eat it.

Towards the end of the year, all of my Bald-pates used to coo frequently, and, what is strange, often in the night. When wakeful from sickness, I have heard it from the adjoining room at intervals, four or five times during the night: especially on those nights in January, when the furious norths blow with so much violence; the bird probably awakened or made uncomfortable by the cold and howling gusts that penetrate every room, as if they would “blow the house out of the windows.” On each occasion the whole set of syllables was repeated twice or thrice in quick succession, preceded by a low note, and then the former silence was maintained. The imitation of their coo, which may be very accurately effected, always attracted attention from the birds, manifested by their eyes turned towards the sound, and their necks stretched out.

WHITEWING DOVE.

(Lapwing.)

Turtur leucopterus.