Some years of repeated observation enable me to offer certain amendments to this narrative, evidently written by one who has been impressed by half the life-history of the bird—­the half spent on the mainland.  The food of the nutmeg pigeon is multifarious.  All sorts of nuts and seeds, and even fruits are consumed—­quandongs, various palm seeds (including those of the creeping palm or lawyer vine, Calamus), nutmeg (MYRISTICA INSIPIDA, not the nutmeg of commerce, though resembling it), the white hard seeds of the native cabbage (SCOEVOLA KOENIGII), the Burdekin plum (PLEIOGYNIUM SOLANDRI), and all sorts of unpromisingly tough and apparently indigestible, innutritious woodeny nuts and drupes.  Moreover, it fattens on such diet, but still the wonder grows at the happy provision which enables nuts proportionately of such enormous size to be swallowed by the bird, and ejected with ease after the pulp or flesh has been assimilated.  As the birds alight on the island after their flight from the mainland, a portion of the contents of the crop seems to be expelled.  A shower of nuts and seeds comes pattering down through the leaves to the ground as each company finds resting-place.  Perhaps those only who are suffering from uncomfortable distention so relieve themselves.  The balance of the contents of the crops seem to go through the ordinary process of digestion.  Thus, by the medium of the pigeons, there is a systematic traffic in and interchange of seeds between the mainland and the islands.  The nutmeg pigeon resorts to islands where there is no fresh water, and builds a rude platform of twigs, and occasionally of leaves, on all sorts of trees, in all sorts of localities.  Palms and mangroves, low bushes, rocky ledges, saplings, are all favoured, no particular preference being shown.  It rears generally two, but sometimes three young, one at a time, during the long breeding season, which continues from the end of September until the end of January, and for each successive egg a fresh carpet of twig or leaves is spread.  A rare nest was composed of fresh leaves of the Moreton Bay ash, with the petioles towards the centre, forming a complex green star.  No doubt the arrangement of the leaves was accidental, but the white dumpy egg as a pearl-like focus completed a quaint device.  Another egg reposed carelessly at the base of a vigorous plant of DENDOBRIUM UNDULATUM, the old-gold plumes of the orchid fantastically shading it.

Those pigeons who elect to incubate on the ground discard even the rude platform of twigs, which generally represents the nest of those who prefer bushes and trees, but gradually encircle themselves with tiny mounds of ejected seeds, until the appearance of a nest is presented.  At the termination of the breeding season these birthplaces of the young are indicated by circular ramparts, in the composition of which the aromatic nutmeg predominates.  Personal experiments on the spot prove that these nutmegs germinate