TURTURENA DELEGORGUIL. 563 
markings; a bare place round the eye; bill and legs bright yellow. 
Length, 13”; wing, 8” 9”; tail, 53”. 
Fig. le Vaill. Ois. d’Afr. vi, pl. 265. 
546. TuRTURHNA DELEGORGUII, Deleg. Delegorgue’s Pigeon. 
The smaller size and white or pale terminal bar on the under 
surface of the tail are some of the characters which distinguish 
Turturena from Palumbus, the proportions of the primaries and the 
short tarsi being the same in both genera. 
The present species will always remain a curiosity among 
ornithologists as being one of the few instances in which a 
naturalist has named ‘a bird after himself. It is an extremely 
rare bird in collections, and is only known from Natal. One 
specimen was shot in 1863 by Mr. T. Ayres in November, being the 
only one he had seen up to that time. ‘‘ The stomach contained 
the frothy larve of a small species of Cicada, which is found 
plentifully in Natal on the tops of trees.” Captain Shelley has 
received a female from Mr. T. L. Ayres, who writes :—“ This is 
the only specimen I have shot. It was feeding upon mulberries in 
a garden on the Berea. My cousin shot two a few days before at 
the same place in October.” Delegorgue himself appears to have 
procured but two specimens, and the British Museum contains only 
a single example, the type of C. lunigera of Gray. 
There is a curious difference in the sexes, the male having a broad 
white collar at the junction of the hind neck and mantle, which 
is absent in the female. The following descriptions are copied 
from Captain Shelley’s paper. 
Adult male.—Head and neck deep slate colour, only very slightly 
paler towards the forehead and chin; back of the head and back, 
and sides of the neck very strongly glossed with metallic amethyst 
lilac, with reflexions of green in certain lights; this same gloss 
extends on to the front of the neck, from the middle throat on to 
the upper chest, but is far less intense, only being visible in certain 
lights, and disappears altogether on the lower chest; the back 
of the neck is separated from the mantle by a broad white collar 
extending from shoulder to shoulder ; remainder of the upper parts 
slaty black, shading into chestnut on the upper back, wing-coverts, 
and portion of the inner secondaries; the edges of the feathers 
of the upper back are faintly glossed towards their edges with 
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