PASSENGER PIGEON. 25 1 



Ectopistes viigratoniis, B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 140 (1883); 

 Saunders, ed. Yarrell's Brit. B. iii. p. 28 (1883); id. Man. 

 Brit. B. p. 474, note (1889); Salvad. Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxi. 

 p. 369 (1893). 



Adult Male. — General colour slaty-grey on the mantle, wing- 

 coverts, lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts ; scapulars 

 brown, with black marks caused by longitudinal patches near 

 the base of the outer web, a few of the adjacent median and 

 greater coverts similarly marked ; bastard-wing, primary-coverts, 

 and quills black, the primaries externally margined with whity- 

 brown, the inner ones more broadly with white near the base 

 of the outer web ; centre tail-feathers slaty-black, the remainder 

 grey, with more or less white along the inner web of all but 

 the outside feathers, which are white on the outer web and grey 

 on the inner one ; all but the centre feathers with a patch of 

 cinnamon near the base of the inner web ; head and hind-neck, 

 sides of face, and throat slaty-blue, paler on the latter, the sides 

 of the neck nietallic reddish lilac, extending round the hind- 

 neck and on to the upper mantle, these parts being shot with 

 coppery bronze ; under surface of body, from the middle of 

 the throat downwards, rich vinous cinnamon, paler on the 

 breast, the lower abdomen and under tail-coverts white ; sides 

 of body and axillaries slaty-grey, the under wing-coverts darker 

 slate colour, and those near the edge of the wing slaty-blackish ; 

 quill Hning dark ashy. Total length, 16-2 inches; culmen, 

 07; wing, 8-45; tail, 7*85; tarsus, 1-2. 



Adult Female. — In the British Museum are specimens, sexed 

 as females, which do not differ from the males in colour. 

 Salvadori and Ridgway, however, describe the hen birds as 

 having a brownish head and whitish throat. According to the 

 latter the chest and breast are greyish brown or drab, gradually 

 changing to pale brownish-grey on the sides ; the belly and 

 under tail-coverts white. Total length, 14-5 inches; wing, 7 ■8. 



Young.— Browner than the adults and marked with white 

 fringes to the feathers of the upper surface, the quills edged 

 with light rufous. The throat and abdomen white ; lower 

 throat, fore-neck, and chest brown, with whitish fringes to the 

 feathers. 



