n.
a bird with a lustrousshoulder, Phaps chalcoptera, Lath. Called also Bronze-wing Pigeon.
1790. J. White, `Voyage to New South Wales,' p. 145:
«One of the gold-winged pigeons, of which a plate is annexed.[Under plate, Golden-winged Pigeon.] This bird is a curiousand singular species remarkable for having most of the feathersof the wing marked with a brilliant spot of golden yellow,changing, in various reflections of light, to green andcopper-bronze, and when the wing is closed, forming two bars ofthe same across it.»
1832. J. Bischoff, `Van Diemen's Land,' vol. ii. p. 31:
«The pigeons are by far the most beautiful birds in the island;they are called bronze-winged pigeons.»
1857. W. Howitt, `Tallangetta,' vol. ii. p. 57:
«Mr. Fitzpatrick followed his kangaroo hounds, and shot hisemus, his wild turkeys, and his bronze-wings.»
1865. `Once a Week.' `The Bulla-Bulla Bunyip.'
«Hours ago the bronze-wing pigeons had taken their eveningdraught from the coffee-coloured water-hole beyond thebutcher's paddock, and then flown back into the bush to rooston `honeysuckle' and in heather.»
1872. C. H. Eden, `My Wife and I in Queensland,' p. 122:
«Another most beautiful pigeon is the `bronze-wing,' which isnearly the size of the English wood-pigeon, and has amagnificent purply-bronze speculum on the wings.»
1888. D. Macdonald, `Gum Boughs,' p. 33:
«Both the bronze-wing and Wonga-Wonga pigeon are hunted sokeenly that in a few years they will have become extinct inVictoria.»
1893. `The Argus,' March 25, p. 4, col. 6:
«Those who care for museum studies must have been interested intracing the Australian quail and pigeon families to a pointwhere they blend their separate identities in the partridgebronze-wing of the Central Australian plains. The eggs markthe converging lines just as clearly as the birds, for thepartridge-pigeon lays an egg much more like that of a quailthan a pigeon, and lays, quail fashion, on the ground.»