A boat was sent to pick it up, and it was found to be a Nicobar pigeon, which must have come from New Guinea, and flown a hundred miles, since no such bird previously inhabited the island.
This is certainly a very curious case of adaptation to an unusual and exceptional necessity.

The bird does not ordinarily require great powers of flight, since it lives in the forest, feeds on fallen fruits, and roosts in low trees like other ground pigeons.

The majority of the individuals, therefore, can never make full use of their enormously powerful wings, till the exceptional case occurs of an individual being blown out to sea, or driven to emigrate by the incursion of some carnivorous animal, or the pressure of scarcity of food.

A modification exactly opposite to that which produced the wingless birds (the Apteryx, Cassowary, and Dodo), appears to have here taken place; and it is curious that in both cases an insular habitat should have been the moving cause.

The explanation is probably the same as that applied by Mr.Darwin to the case of the Madeira beetles, many of which are wingless, while some of the winged ones have the wings better developed than the same species on the continent.