On the 30th of December, we had the commencement of the south-east trade, being then in lat. 8° 49′ south, and long. 101° 20′ east. On the 31st of December, I nearly lost one of the Crowned pigeons, from some of the bamboos of the cage in which they were confined having been broken. This accident was not perceived at the time it occurred: it was even fortunate that the bird was seen to escape, and the cause discovered, previously to the whole of them coming out. The bird, now at liberty, got upon one of the quarter-boats; and from the motion of the ship throwing it occasionally nearly off its balance, I was fearful every moment of seeing it meet with a watery grave. As it stood upon the edge of the boat, surveying the expansive ocean before it, the bird seemed, as the vessel gave an occasional lurch, to be in danger of falling into the waves; or by mistaking the field of sea for a large plain, might have plunged itself, unconsciously, into destruction: fortunately, however, the second officer of the ship succeeded in capturing and returning it to the cage it had forsaken. As the bird stood upon the boat, it had a very graceful and elegant appearance, gazing upon the wide view before it, with its beautiful bright-red eyes, and delicate crest; uttering at the same time, whilst gently bending its head, the usual humming, mournful sounds, which resembled those of a person suffering bodily torture.
The birds have a very healthy appearance, and feed well upon paddy; and on some maize being given to them some time afterwards, they refused it, preferring the former grain. After this accident occurring to their cage, to prevent a recurrence, they were removed into an empty and spacious turkey-coop, which, from its construction, shelter them very well from the weather.
On the 15th of January, I had the misfortune to lose one of the birds: they had all the semblance of being in excellent health on the evening previously; but when the decks were washing, one was seen to run about the cage two or three times, and then fell dead. This bird, I had observed when it first came on board, had a film over one of the eyes, (which diseased eye has been preserved in spirits,) but it did not appear at all to affect its general health.[80]
From the very sudden death of the bird, I felt some degree of interest, in examining the body, to ascertain the cause of so sudden a mortality; fearing that the other birds might be affected in a similar manner, and thus all my hopes of taking them to England in a living state would be frustrated.
On taking the dead bird from the cage, a quantity of gruelly liquid was discharged gradually from the bill: there were no external appearances to account for the death of the creature: the plumage was rubbed in some places; the wing and tail feathers were broken, but not more than may be expected from birds in a state of confinement, although they had an abundance of space in their coop to roam about.
On examining the interior of the bird, the appearances of disease that presented themselves were sufficiently clear to account for its death: the skin, considering the size of the body, was very thin; but this I believe to be invariably the case in the pigeon tribe: the bird was very muscular; but the pectoral more particularly, as well as also the other muscles, were extremely pallid, and could be readily torn asunder, having a closer resemblance to the muscles of a fish than to those of the feathered tribe. On examining the crop, I observed that it was, both in its external as well as its internal appearance, very vascular: it was nearly empty of food, having only a few grains of paddy mingled with some quantity of mucus; some scattered grains of paddy were also seen in the mouth and gullet, so it appears the bird had died whilst in the act of feeding. There was much yellowish fat about the crop, as well as other portions of the body.
Between the skull and the integuments, there was much secretion of a serous fluid; but I could observe no muscular apparatus for raising or depressing the crest. But underneath the crest, between the skull and the integuments, was much fat; a thickening, as if of cellular membrane; and glands secreting the elegant and delicate feathers forming the crest.
The eyes and corresponding orbits were very large; indeed, I may say remarkably so, considering the size of the skull, the posterior portion of which was very thick, and the brain of a small size, in proportion to what would have been expected from the external appearance of the cranium.
The lungs were soft and readily broken, as well as the liver, although neither of them had an unhealthy colour in their external appearance. Upon the under surface of the latter organ, there was a small and nearly oval body, in some degree resembling a clotted piece of blood.
On tracing down the alimentary canal, no disease or obstruction could be met with, until, on arriving at the second stomach or gizzard, I found it distended to the utmost with food, and for rather more than an inch above the cardiac orifice, the alimentary canal was also distended, as if some cause prevented the natural passage of the food; the intestines below the gizzard (except at a very short distance from the pyloric orifice, which was also distended with food) were empty. Here, then, I was led to expect some explanation of the cause of obstruction, which had no doubt occasioned the death of the bird. I laid open, with my scalpel, the slightly-distended intestine just below or about the pyloric orifice. The cause of the obstruction was made evident, by the appearance of a polypus, which came out, being situated just below the part which was distended, evidently forming the cause of obstruction to the passage of the digested food. This polypus measured, in length, two inches and six-eighths; and in its greatest breadth, three-eighths of an inch. It was rounded at one end; tapering almost to a point at the other. Part was of a bright vermillion, and the remainder of a dirty or yellowish white.