to be, since by this means it may readily pass with great ease, and in a short time, over a vast extent of country; this great power of flight is also a highly necessary qualification to enable it to traverse the great distances it is probably often necessitated to do in search of water. On dissecting the specimens obtained, I found their crops half filled with small hard seeds, which they procured from the open plains, but of what kinds I was unable to determine. Forehead, stripe from behind the eye, forming a circle round the ear-coverts, and a crescent-shaped mark across the throat snow-white; the remainder of the head, throat and ear-coverts jet-black; all the upper surface, wing-coverts, flanks and two centre tail-feathers deep cinnamon-brown; edge of the shoulder dull white; spurious wing bluish gray, slightly margined with white; primaries brownish gray, margined on their outer web with rufous at the base, largely marked with the same on the inner web, forming a conspicuous patch on the under surface of the wing, and with an oval spot of white at the tip of each feather; secondaries crossed by a beautiful deep crimson bronze on the outer webs near the tip; lateral tail-feathers bluish gray at the base, passing into black toward the extremity, which is white; breast and centre of the abdomen bluish gray; under tail-coverts light buff; nostrils and bill black; bare skin surrounding the eye purplish black; irides dark brown; frontal scales of the legs and feet lilac-red; hind part flesh-red. The female has only a faint indication of the markings which adorn the male, and is altogether much less brilliant in her appearance. The figures are those of a male and female of the natural size. [Illustration: GEOPHAPS SCRIPTA. _J. Gould and H.C. Richter lithog._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] GEOPHAPS SCRIPTA. Partridge Bronze-wing. _Columba scripta_, Temm. Pl. Col. 187; and in Linn. Trans., vol. xiii. p. 127.—Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool., vol. xiv. p. 284. _Geophaps scripta_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., February 8, 1842.—G. R. Gray, Appendix to Gen. of Birds, p. 12.