Genus MACROPYGIA. 
The genus Macropygia is included by Salvadori in his family 
Columbidae, but, together with three other genera, is placed in a sub- 
family, Macropygiinae, whilst Blanford retains it with the Wood- and 
Rock-Pigeons and the true Doves in his Columbinae. It is a very well- 
marked genus, with a long tail exceeding the wing in length and having 
the feathers very much graduated, in both these respects differing 
from all our other genera of this subfamily. The bill is small and weak, 
the tarsus short and feathered for the greater part of its length, the 
toes long, and the soles broadened. The feathers of the rump are 
spinous, and the tail-coverts elongated. 
One of the most remarkable features in the plumage of this genus, 
in so far as it is found within Indian limits, is in regard to the barring 
found on the plumage of the adult male or female. Thus, in one species, 
tusalia, the lower plumage is barred throughout in the adult female 
and not at all in the male, whereas in the next species, rufipennis, the 
male bird is barred and the fully adult female is entirely without barring 
on the lower-plumage ; and yet again in the third species, ruficeps, there 
is no barring on the breasts of either sex when adult, but the breast 
is mottled with black in the female and with white in the male. 
As it is to be presumed that all these three species have descended 
from one ancestor, it is interesting to try to work out which is the primi- 
tive type of plumage, and if, as would probably be held to be the case, 
the barred plumage is the earliest type of colouring, why has this per- 
sisted in the male in one species, in the female in another, whilst it has 
practically disappeared in a third ? 
In the Jbis for April, 1890, Wardlaw Ramsay dealt at some length 
with the genus Macropygia, in which he recognized twenty-six species, 
including the above three species, but not including assimilis. The 
questions of differentiation in sex he considers, in this article, very care- 
fully, and it will be seen that on the whole I agree with the conclusions 
at which he arrives, but that I do not consider the males and females 
of rufipennis are entirely alike when fully adult. 
Although Wardlaw Ramsay does not divide assimilis from ruficeps, 
he appears to consider that the Tenasserim bird is larger than the latter 
and should be divided, but I bave gone very carefully into the question 
and cannot agree with him on this point. 
