Many of the birds on both sides of the Mediterranean
have a distinctly white rump, although even in the west, as
in Spain, there is a tendency in the white to become less pure
than in northern examples, and the band is often narrower.
Proceeding eastward^ there is a gradual increase in the
number of birds which have less white in the rump, until
in the Jordan valley, according to Canon Tristram, only the
grey-rumped form, to which Bonaparte gave the name of
C. schimperi, is found ; although in the mountains on either
side the true G. livia is abundant. In .Egypt, Dr. Leith;
Adams states that it is not easy to define the limits of
wild and domestic Pigeons, all the denizens of the dovecotes
preserving the leading characteristics of the two black
bars on the wings and the single black bar on the tail, with
the white on the edges of the outer tail-feathers : most of the
domestic birds, however, had the grey rump of schimperi.
True Ç. livia appears, however, to go as far as Mesopotamia,
and has also been obtained in Sindh and Cashmere, but in
Gilgit, Dr. Scully found both the white-rumped and the. grey-
rumped forms ; even the latter, however, being always lighter
than the extreme form, G. intermedia, Strickland, which ku
habits Southern India and Ceylon, and which has the rump as
dark as, or darker than, the back. In Turkestan, iGeatral Asia,
Tibet and China, is found a more distinct form, C< rwpestris,
Pallas, which has a. white subterminal band, on the tail-
feathers.- ÜThere seems,” says Darwin, “ to be some-relation
between the croup being blue or white, and the
temperature of the country inhabited by both wild .and
dovecot pigeons ; for nearly all the dovecot pigeons in thé
northern parts of Europe have a white croup like, that of the
wild European rock -pigeon; and nearly all the dovecot
pigeons of India have a blue croup like that of the wild
C-. intermedia 6f India.”
In Britain thé'EocM Pigeon sometimes begins breeding as
early as March : birds recently hatched having been noticed
on 2nd April,^ and young, and even unhatched, eggs,, are
found in September ; so ,th$t , at least two broods are reared
* R. Gray,.Birds of the West of Scotland,.p. 222. ’
in the year. Deep caverns, moist with the spray from the
thundering surge, are its favourite resorts, and oh entering
one of these in a boat, numbers will dart forth from its
dark recesses, and, as the eye becomes accustomed to the
twilight, the grey plumage of those which have remained
on the more distant ledges, may be discerned against the
dark background of the rocks. The nest is slight, constructed
of bents, heather, dried grasses or sea-weed, and
the eggs are, as usual, two in numbër,- pure white, of a
short oval shape, rather pointed at one end, measuring 1;5
by®! 5.
Like its congeners,- this species'devours considerable
quantities of grain; making amends ?ëS ■ some extent by
eating the roots of "the couch-grass (Triticum repens), and
the seeds óf various troublesome .weeds when com is not
procurable. Montagu ascertained that it eats considerable
quantities of Helix virg'ata, and Macgillivray sayS it picks up
several species of shell-snails, especially Helix ericetorum
and Bulimus acutus. . It 'drinks frequently, and in? Egypt",
in places where the banks of the Nüé’areso steép that the
birds cannot alight on -the shore to drink, both Mr. R. S.
Skirving and Mr. E. O. Taylór have observed whole flocks'
settle on the water. like Gulls, and drink whilst they floated
down stream.. The same habit has been observed in tame
pigeons at Cologne when the shore-ice in the Rhine prevented
approach to the water. It is migratory in the north to a
limited extent, impelled by the necessity* of keeking food, but
generally it is a resident species. One marked characteristic^
is its strong objection'-to. settling upon trees—a peculiarity
sharedby‘its domesticated relatives. *
The adult has the beak rèddish-brown; irides pale orange;
head and neck bluish-grey,"the Sides.of the latter shining with?
green and purple reflections; shoulders, upper part of the
back and both sets of wing-coverts french-grey; all the greater
coverts with a black mark forming a: conspicuous black band;
primary and secondary quill-feathers ‘bluish-grey,' darker on
thé outer webs; tertials pale grey with a broad band of
black separated from the above-mentioned band by the light-
VOL. III. ^