50 Mr. E. Blyth's Drafts for a Fauna Indica. 



and legs and toes reddish-carneous. The female I have not yet 

 seen. Length 13 by 21 inches ; closed wing 7 inches. 



This species occurs in the north-west Himalaya, as about Simla, 

 and is, I believe, rare in Nepal. I kept one alive for some time 

 that was stated to have been brought from Agra, whither it had 

 no doubt been carried from the hills. Can it be a variety only 

 of the last ? 



Tr. apicauda, Hodgson (mentioned in Mr. G. R. Gray's 

 Catalogue of the Ornithological Specimens in the British Mu- 

 seum). Nearly allied to 7r. oxyura of the Malay countries, 

 from which it is at once distinguished by the pale yellow margins 

 of its great wing-coverts, forming two narrow longitudinally ob- 

 lique bars on the wing. General colour green, more yellowish 

 towards the tail and on the under-parts, and tinged in the male 

 with russet on the crown and breast ; primaries dusky black ; 

 tail with its middle feathers greatly prolonged beyond the rest, 

 and their elongated portion much attenuated; its colour gray 

 with a medial blackish band, obsolete on the middle pair of 

 feathers, which at base are yellowish- green. Bill evidently glau- 

 cous-bluish, and legs red. Length of wing 6|^ inches, and of 

 middle tail-feathers 8 inches or more, passing the next pair by 

 about 3 inches. 



Inhabits the south-eastern Himalaya and the hill-ranges of 

 Assam, being tolerably common at Darjeeling. 



Genus Carpophaga, Selby (1835) : Ducula, Hodgson (1836) : 

 Dukul, or Dunkul, H. The Dunkuls. 



These fruit pigeons are mostly of large size, with broad-soled 

 feet and strong hooked claws, much as in the typical Hurrials, 

 and a slender, generally somewhat lengthened bill, having the 

 terminal third only of its upper mandible corneous, and the plu- 

 mage of the chin advancing very far forward, underneath the 

 lower mandible. In a few species the base of the upper mandible 

 expands to form a fleshy knob. Wings, in all the typical spe- 

 cies, adapted for powerful flight. The plumage of the head, 

 neck and under-parts, and in some species throughout, is blent 

 and glossless, and mostly of a delicate gray, or a vinous hue, with 

 never the peculiar burnish on the sides of the neck so general 

 among ordinary pigeons ; but many species have the upper parts, 

 wings and tail shining metallic green, which in some is bronzed 

 or coppery, in others varied with rich steel-blue ; hence several 

 are among the most showy of the pigeon tribe ; others, however, 

 being simply black and white, though all are alike handsome 

 when viewed in the fresh state, from the delicate beauty of the 

 irides, bill, feet, and any nude skin about the head, the exquisite 

 colouring of which is lost in the dry specimen. These birds are 

 more especially developed in the ^reat Oriental Archipelago, where 



