Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/523

 PIGEON with tips of rich purplish brown; a central broad white bar across the closed wings. This bird seems to connect the pigeons with the curassows and guans ; it nests in trees, and lays only two eggs ; it is readily tamed, but, like the gaudy Nicobar pigeon, does not propagate PIGEON HAWK 507 Crowned Pigeon (Goura coronata). in confinement, and can hardly bear the chilly temperature of northern climates ; its flesh is excellent for food. This species and the Gr. Victories have hybridized at the London zo- ological gardens, and have produced a living young one, having sat upon a single egg for 28 days. The subfamily didunculina have the bill strong and nearly as long as the head, with the culmen depressed close to the forehead, and then suddenly rising and forming an arch to the acute and overhanging tip ; the lower man- dible is armed with three distinct angular teeth near the truncated tip ; the wings moderate and concave, and the bend armed with a blunt tu- bercle ; the tail short and rounded ; tarsi mod- erate and strong; all the toes long, and with sharp curved claws; bare space around eyes and on each side of throat. The only genus is didunculus (Peale), and the only species D. strigirostris (Gould), found in the' Samoan isl- ands ; it is about the size of a common pigeon, of a general blackish glossy green color, with chestnut back and tail, brownish quills, and orange bill. Its wings indicate a considerable power of flight, and it is said to pass most of its time on trees, feeding on berries and fruits ; it also seems adapted for movement on the ground, and its bill is suited to digging up bul- bous roots or stripping the husks from nuts. They are generally seen in pairs or small flocks ; the nest is made among rocks, and the young are born naked and helpless ; the flesh is ex- cellent ; they are kept as pets by the natives. This is an interesting bird, as showing a liv- ing connection of the pigeons with the extinct dodo ; many of its characters also bring it near gallinaceous birds, especially the curassows. PIGEON BERRY. See POKE. PIGEON ENGLISH (or more correctly pidjin English), a language used in China between the natives and the English-speaking residents. Its origin is referable to the difficulty met by traders in communicating with the Chinese in their own tongue. A few simple words in English were more easily acquired by the Chinese than were their idioms and inflections by foreigners. These words, being accepted at certain values, formed the basis of pidjin English, and thereto have been added other expressions from English as well as from Por- tuguese, Malay, Hindostanee, &c., the whole forming a dialect utterly beyond the scope of grammar and syntax, but available for every- day commercial and domestic transactions, and concreted into a distinct language. Many of the words are so changed in pronunciation as to be hardly recognizable. Pidjin is a cor- ruption of the word business, so that pidjin English is really business English. Commis- sion has become cumshaw, and from meaning a compensation for services rendered has come to mean a gratuity. To a certain extent the dialect is a mere transference of words from English into Chinese, arranged syntactically according to the Chinese method. " Did you give the gentleman my letter ? " would be rendered : " You have pay that massa my chit? " In this the word pay conveys the act of transference, massa (corruption of master) the gentleman, and chit (from the Hindosta- nee) the letter. The dialect is never written, and has a very silly sound, resembling mere baby talk, chiefly from the frequent double e terminations ; yet it is the vernacular vehicle of the commercial transactions of China with the outer world, and it is taught in a few Chi- nese schools as forming part of the curriculum necessary for the embryo merchant. In other eastern countries residents generally aim at acquiring enough of the native language to serve their wants, although in Japan the lan- guage thus used is as far from pure Japanese as is the grotesque pidjin English from pure English. The vocabulary of pidjin English is extremely limited, one word doing duty for a great variety of purposes : the word pay, above mentioned, is one of these; walTcee is used for nearly all forms of motion ; &dbe for know, understand, &c. ; talkee for say, talk, speak, tell, &c. A characteristic pidjin English sen- tence is that in which a Chinese merchant ex- pressed what seemed to him the necessity of painting eyes on the bows of vessels (a thing always done in China); he said : " No got eye, no can see ; no can see, no can sabe ; no can sabe, no can walkee." PIGEON HAWK, a small bird of prey of the falcon subfamily and genus TiypotriorcJiis (Boie) or cesalon (Kaup), which differs from falco (Linn.) in its longer and more slender tarsi, covered in front with large hexagonal scales, and very long and slender toes. There are more than a dozen species scattered over