pale-pink eyelid (whence the name "sore-eyed pigeon"). The bill was black, conical, and very strong; the nostrils oval, placed at about the centre of the bill, and directed fore-and-aft. Covering just half of the nostril on each side was the curved anterior edge of a saddle-shaped horny sheath (Fig. 2), also black, and bestriding the posterior half of the bill. The pommel of the saddle was canted upward, so as to clear the bill by about three-tenths of an inch; its cantle was lost in the short feathers covering the forehead, and the flaps continued downward on each side, becoming soldered to the upper mandible
Fig. 2.—Head of Chionis Minor.
near its base. On each side they sent up a black fleshy process (caruncle), deeply pitted with holes, which lay in contact with the upper eyelid. And, a fact not before observed, on clipping away the forehead-feathers, this black fleshy mass was found to extend entirely across the forehead, like the upper part of a black-silk domino, the little feathers which hide it during life passing through the holes with which it was everywhere pitted (Fig. 3). The legs were stout, pale flesh-colored, and scaly, with large, pavement-like knobs, but not what ornithologists call "scutellated," excepting over the upper surfaces of the toes. There were four toes, the first or hinder one being of good size for a hind-toe, and elevated above the rest, arising a little to the inner side of the leg. The claws were large, blunt, and black, and on the wrist-joint of each wing was a small black knob, like a spur (flesh-colored in females and young birds), which was afterward found to be supported by a distinct bony process, or exostosis, from the bone of the wing. The tail was very slightly rounded, and composed of twelve feathers—the wing-primaries were ten, and the first three of equal length.
It may be as well to mention here that this species was erected by Dr. Hartlaub in 1841, when he wrote to the Revue Zoölogique[1]
- ↑ Revue Zoölogique, 1841, p. 5.
