In the Short Cut of Paradise, where the sweet-wood abounds, the Partridge is also numerous; in March and April when these berries are ripe, their stomachs are filled with them. Here at the same season, their cooing resounds, which is simply a very sad moan, usually uttered on the ground; but on one occasion we heard it from the limb of a cotton tree at Cave, on which the bird sitting, with its head drawn in, was shot in the very act. But at a little distance, the voice is not distinguishable from the moan of the Mountain Witch.
A notion prevails that the dark coloured bird is the male, and the rufous one the female; but I have proved the contrary, by repeated dissections.
One day in June, I went down with a young friend into a wooded valley at Content, to look at a Partridge’s nest. As we crept cautiously towards the spot, the male bird flew from it. I was surprised at its rudeness; it was nothing but half-a-dozen decayed leaves laid one on another, and on two or three dry twigs, but from the sitting of the birds it had acquired a slight hollowness, about as much as that of a skimmer. It was placed on the top, (slightly sunk among the leaves) of a small bush, not more than three feet high, whose glossy foliage and small white blossoms reminded me of a myrtle. There were two young, recently hatched; callow and peculiarly helpless, their eyes closed, their bills large and misshapen,—they bore little resemblance to birds.
On another occasion, I saw the male shot while sitting; the nest was then placed on a slender bush, about five feet from the ground. There were but two eggs, of a very pale buff colour; sometimes, however, they are considerably darker.
When seen alive, or recently killed, the affinity of the Partridge-dove to the Mountain Witch is very apparent; the stout form, the colour of the feet, of the beak, and of the eyelids, and particularly the conical form of the head, and a tendency to the projecting hood-like plumage of the occiput, help to indicate its true place. It has little resemblance to either a Zenaida or a Peristera. The flesh is very white; like that of its congener.
The woodsmen speak of a Blue Partridge, and a Red-necked Dove; the former is figured by Robinson, and is no doubt a ground pigeon. The Spanish Partridge (Starnænas cyanocephala) is not considered as indigenous in Jamaica, though it is frequently imported thither from Cuba. It may, however, yet be found in the precipitous woods of the north side; Albin, Brisson, Buffon, and Temminck, attribute it positively to our island.