Page:Pigeons - their structure, varieties, habits, and management (IA b28107901).pdf/27



HE Blue Rock Dove, Columba livia, being the origin from whence all our numerous domestic varieties have sprung, demands at our hands a full description of its structure, markings, and habits. It is not the good fortune of many naturalists to have had similar opportunities of observing this beautiful bird in its feral condition to those that fell to the lot of that ardent ornithologist Macgillivray. As his description of the Rock Dove is unquestionably the best that has ever appeared, we shall freely avail ourselves of it in this chapter, and this the more readily as the admirable work from which we extract, "The History of British Birds," hag been long out of print.

"The Rock Dove," writes Macgillivray, "is a very beautiful bird, although its style of colouring is less gaudy than that of many foreign species. It is of a compact form, the body being rather full, the neck rather short, the head small, the feet short and strong, the wings rather long, the tail of moderate length.

"The bill is short, slender, and straight; the nasal membrane scurfy, the outline of the upper mandible straight for half its length, then arched and turned down; the edges soft at the base, the tip compressed, with the edges inflected; the lower mandible weak at the base, its sides nearly erect, the edges towards the end sharp, and the tip obtuse. Both mandibles are deeply concave internally. The mouth is only four-twelfths of an inch across. The tongue is very slender, seven and a half-twelfths in length, emarginate at the base, horny towards the end, and pointed.

"The eyes are rather small; the eyelids bare, and having in their vicinity a bare space of considerable extent. The nostrils are linear, wider anteriorly, two and half-twelfths long. The apeture of the ear is roundish or obliquely oblong, a line and a half in diameter.

"The tarsi, which are very short, and feathered anteriorly one-third down, have five entire and two lower divided scales, their hind part soft, without scales, but scurfy. The first toe has six, the second eight, the third fourteen, the fourth eleven scales. The claws are arched in the third of a circle, compressed, rather sharp.

"The plumage is generally compact and short; on the abdomen downy and blended. The feathers are mostly ovate and rounded; those of the lower part of the neck all round have their filaments flattened and shining. The wings are rather long and pointed; the primaries, or first ten flight feathers, are tapering;