.268 A MANUAL OF THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



Large Fruit Pigeons with very small bills, long wings, long taile, short legs and 

 feet. The bill is very small, rather triangular in shape, being broad at the base, 

 the culmen ridge flattened, the dertrum descending, not swollen, and little projecting ; 

 the nasal groove short about half the length of the culmen, the nasal covering delicate 

 and in the dried skin much shrunken, the nostrils linear ; the lower mandible shallow, 

 the rami divergent, the interramal space fully feathered, the gonys very short, 

 angulated and abruptly ascending ; the skull is not so flattened as in preceding 

 genus. The wing is long and pointed, the first primary abruptly attenuated for 

 the apical fifth and narrowed for the remainder, the second to fifth primaries show 

 no scalloping on outer webs, the sixth to the ninth with peculiar tips, the outer 

 webs strongly pointed, the inner abruptly truncate ; the first primary is shorter 

 than the seventh, the second is much longer, the third longer, the fourth longest, 

 the fifth broader and longer than the second, the tip apparently tending to attenua- 

 tion ; the secondaries short. The tail is slightly rounded, formed of twelve broad 

 feathers with semi-truncate tips, about three-fourths the length of the wing. The 

 tarsus is stout and short, less than the length of the culmen and densely covered 

 with feathers ; the toes are long and slender, the claws long and strongly curved, 

 the middle toe longest, the outer longer than the inner, the hind-toe a little shorter 

 than the latter, the lateral membranes on sides of hind-toe broad as also on inner 

 side of inner toe. 



Coloration : head and neck all round white, back and wings blackish, lower 

 back grey, tail basal black, tip greyish-white ; black breast-band, abdomen slate 

 to green. 



184. Leucotreron alligator. BLACK-BANDED FRUIT PIGEON. 



Mathews, Vol. I., pt. 2, pi. 21, Jan. 31st, 1911. 



Ptilopus (Leucotreron) alligator Collett, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond), 1898, p. 364, Oct. 1st: 

 Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. 



DISTRIBUTION. Northern Territory. 



Adult female. Head and neck all round, including the upper-breast, white, 

 with a wash of buff on the latter, as also on the hind-neck, a narrow white line dividing 

 these parts from the greenish-black band on the breast and the black of the upper 

 back ; lesser wing-coverts like the upper back ; median and greater coverts slate- 

 grey, with black margins ; primary-coverts and primary-quills greenish-black, as 

 also the secondaries ; lower back dark ashy -grey, becoming paler on the upper 

 tail-coverts ; the long upper tail-coverts showing dark shaft-streaks ; tail black, 

 broadly tipped with white ; abdomen, sides of body, under wing-coverts, axillaries, 

 and under tail-coverts bluish-grey, becoming almost white on the long under tail- 

 coverts ; bill (in skin) light coloured, tip yellowish ; feet reddish. Total length 

 345 mm. ; culmen 23, wing 184, tail 140, tarsus 21. 



Adult male. Similar to female. 



Nest and Eggs. Undescribed. 



Distribution and forms. Restricted to Northern Territory and no subspecies. 



Genus MYRISTICIVORA. 



Myristicivora Reichenbach, Nat. Syst. Vogel, p. xxn., 1852 (? 1853). Type (by original 

 designation) : Colurnba littoralis Temm. = C. bicolor Scopoli. 



Large Fruit Pigeons with moderate bill, long wings, long tail and short stout 

 legs and feet. The chief features of this beautiful genus are its lack of peculiarities. 

 The bill is formed as in Leucotreron, but larger, the dertrum proportionately less but 

 strongly decurved. The wing is composed of normal feathers, long and pointed, the 

 first primary almost longest, equal to third and only exceeded slightly by second, 



