Some
declared it was a yard long; others were frightened, and
instantly dropped it, and all were as much astonished, and made
as much shouting and gesticulation, as children at a pantomime,
or at a Christmas exhibition of the oxyhydrogen microscope.
And
all this excitement was produced by a little pocket lens, an inch
and a half focus, and therefore magnifying only four or five
times, but which to their unaccustomed eyes appeared to enlarge a
hundred fold.
On the last day of my stay here, one of my hunters succeeded in
finding and shooting the beautiful Nicobar pigeon, of which I had
been so long in search. None of the residents had ever seen it,
which shows that it is rare and slay. My specimen was a female in
beautiful condition, and the glassy coppery and green of its
plumage, the snow-white tail and beautiful pendent feathers of
the neck, were greatly admired. I subsequently obtained a
specimen in New Guinea; and once saw it in the Kaiķa islands. It
is found also in some small islands near Macassar, in others near
Borneo; and in the Nicobar islands, whence it receives its name.
It is a ground feeder, only going upon trees to roost, and is a
very heavy fleshy bird. This may account far the fact of its
being found chiefly on very small islands, while in the western
half of the Archipelago, it seems entirely absent from the larger
ones. Being a ground feeder it is subject to the attacks of
carnivorous quadrupeds, which are not found in the very small
islands.
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