Various seeds and nuts I have found in the gizzards of many that I have examined, some hard and stony; others farinaceous, and comminuted. The seed of the lance-wood is said to afford it food. The Mountain Witch is generally spoken of as rare, in the island; but I suspect the remoteness and difficulty of access of its recluse solitudes, have contributed to this opinion. Robinson gives Clarendon as one of its localities: he says it is the most beautiful pigeon in Jamaica. I should be inclined to say “the most beautiful _bird_,” if we except the Long-tailed Humming-bird. I had been assured by intelligent men, very familiar with these birds, that the Mountain Witch lays in March, in the angle of the roots of a tree, on the ground; that the young leave the nest about a week after they are hatched, and are led about by the mother, who scratches for them in the manner of a fowl. Some have declared that they have been eye-witnesses of this; persons who have never heard that this pigeon has any systematic affinity to the _Gallinaceæ_. I made many inquiries and found the statement very general, almost universal. A female shot in March had an egg in the oviduct, shelled and perfectly ready for exclusion; it was of a dull reddish-white, unspotted; and measured 1¹⁄₄ inch by ⁷⁄₈. Of many which were procured for me in May, nearly every one was of the male sex; and they were shot from trees; on inquiry into this anomaly, I was told that during incubation the male invariably lodges in a neighbouring tree; a singular deviation from its ordinary habits. There is no appreciable difference between the sexes, except that the male has the vent, under tail-coverts, and thighs of a deeper chestnut, and empurpled. The red of the quills is also brighter. PARTRIDGE DOVE.[93] _Mountain Partridge._ _Geotrygon montana._ _Columba montana_, +Linn.+ _Columba Martinica_, +Temm.+ Pig. 5, 6. ? _Peristera cuprea_, +Wagl.+ [93] Length 9¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 17¹⁄₂, flexure 6, tail 3⁴⁄₁₀, rictus 1, tarsus 1¹⁄₄, middle toe 1¹⁄₁₀. Irides golden yellow; feet flesh-colour, front of tarsi bright red; beak reddish horn-colour, base dark-red; naked skin of face blue, red in the centre; edge of eyelids scarlet. Male. Upper parts bright chestnut, more or less flushed with a purple iridescence, chiefly on neck and back. Breast pale purplish-brown, softened to white on throat and chin; a band of deep chestnut runs forward from the ear to the throat. Belly and under tail-coverts, buff-white. Female. Upper parts dark olive, glossed; a few (sometimes nearly all) of the feathers tipped with bay; head rather browner. Wing-quills blackish: tail blackish, outmost feather tipped with white, a broad spot of chestnut on the inner web. Throat whitish; breast and sides dusky; under parts reddish-white.