212 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



fore be relegated to the synonymy of arquatrix without any hesita- 

 tion. 



The Juvenal plumage of this pigeon as described in detail by 

 Lonnberg ^ agrees precisely with a specimen in the United States 

 National Museum, except that the throat is grayish, not whitish 

 as in Lonnberg's account. This plumage may be briefly char- 

 acterized as follows: Generally dull slaty brownish; the feath- 

 ers margined with rufous brown, the throat lighter, more grayish, 

 less brownish than the breast ; the occiput and nape very slightly, if 

 any, lighter than the crown and forehead ; breast and abdomen with 

 rufous or rufous-white tips and edges. The transition from this 

 plumage to the next is a gradual one and involves the feathers of 

 the head and body but not the wings or tail. Lonnberg's specimen, 

 referred to above, was probably changing into the immature plumage 

 as it has the crown darker than the occiput and nape, and has the 

 breast and abdomen with white apical spots as well as rufous ones. 

 In the immature plumage the birds become grayish rather than 

 brownish, more like the adults, the occiput and nape lose their 

 brownish color and become bluish gray; the breast and abdomen 

 have a slight purplish wash and dark-brown tips to the feathers. 



The adult plumage is first acquired by a complete molt. Adults 

 vary greatly in coloration, particularly in the purplish or reddish 

 or bluish wash of the back and under parts and the darkness or 

 lightness of the nape. This was noted as long ago as 1905 when 

 Erlanger ' ascribed the differences solely to individual variation. 

 Granvik ^ corroborates this and writes that within a single month in 

 one district he has, " * * * shot birds with a dark, brown- 

 violet under surface, others with a light greyish red belly, etc. Some 

 have the crown and neck bright light gray (the commonest state), 

 others have these parts dark grayish blue (almost the same color as 

 the young bird)." This is also well shown by the present series. It 

 is rather, interesting that the color of the occiput and nape should 

 vary in arquatrrx for the western races albinucha, sjostedti, and 

 thomensh^ are based largely on the color of these parts, which, in 

 them, seems quite constant. I have no doubt that Madarasz was led 

 to describe the Etliiopian bird as distinct because he compared a 

 dark-naped individual from that country with a light-naped one 

 from East Africa. 



Van Someron '■' writes that his Kenya Colony birds have a distinct 

 greenish sheen on the inner secondaries and coverts, which are dull 



»Arkiv for Zoologi, vol. 9, No. 14, 1915, p. 3. 

 ■'Journ. f. Ornith., 1905, p. 115. 

 s Idem, Souderheft, 1923, p. 48. 

 » Nov. Zool., vol. 29, p. 34. 



