1865. ] GROUND-PIGEON IN THE MENAGERIE. 239 
I now find that the species is not new to science, but has been 
already described some years since. It is the Pampusanna criniger 
of Pucheran, in the “ Zoologie”’ of the ‘ Voyage au Péle Sud’ (iii. 
p- 118), and is figured in the Atlas of the same work (pl. 27. fig. 2). 
It must therefore stand as Phlogenas crinigera, Pucheran*. Its 
native country is “ Soog,”’ one of the Sooloo Islands. A single spe- 
cimen of it is in the Paris Museum. The difficulty of recognizing 
living birds, and the want of the ‘ Voyage au Péle Sud’ in the So- 
ciety’s library, are the only excuses I can offer for having given a 
second name to this species. 
As I have already stated, four specimens of this beautiful Pigeon 
were purchased by Mr. Bartlett at Liverpool, in August 1863. In 
the following spring the single male paired with one of the three 
females, and bred five times during the summer of 1864. The female 
deposited only one egg on each occasion, making a very slight nest 
of small sticks in a flat basket placed 8 feet above the ground in the 
Western Aviary. The period of incubation was fifteen days. Two 
of the young birds were successfully reared, and are now in adult 
plumage; two others died immature, and are now in the British 
Museum. On the remaining occasion the egg was addled. 
The bird I now exhibit is the breeding female, which unfortu- 
nately died a short time since ; but as the old male has mated with 
another female, and the young male likewise shows symptoms of 
wishing to pair, there seems every prospect of continuing to propa- 
gate this highly interesting species in our aviaries. 
It is generally supposed that all the Columbe lay two eggs each 
time they breed, but this is certainly not the case. The Passenger 
Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), the Grey Pigeon (Columba macu- 
losa), the Naked-eyed Pigeon (C. gymnophthalma), and the two 
Crowned Pigeons (Gouwra coronata and G. victorie+) all lay but one 
egg when they breed in our aviaries; and I suspect this is the case 
with other species. 
Although I have paid no special attention to the birds of the 
order Columbe, I may take this opportunity of remarking that I 
consider Bonaparte in error in separating, so far as he has done, the 
Ground-Pigeons of the New World (Starnenas and Geotrygont) 
and their allies from those of the Old. The habits, attitudes, and 
poses of the members of the two groups (for instance, those of Geo- 
trygon sylvatica and Phlogenas crinigera) are very noticeably simi- 
lar; and I know of no material difference in their structure. 
The sterna of these two species also present a great resemblance, 
and differ from those of the typical Columbze (C. enas, C. palumbus, 
&c.) in several particulars. The rami of the furcula are much more 
slender, the hyposternal processes more elongate, and the outer 
* Cf. Bp. Consp. ii. p. 88. 
+ Compare Mr. Mitchell’s notes on the breeding of this species, P.Z.S. 1849, 
p- 170. : 
t I see no grounds for retaining these two genera as distinct. The ‘“ Moun- 
tain-Witch”’ of Jamaica (Geotrygon sylvatica, Gosse) cannot, in my opinion, be 
separated generically from the Starnenas eyanocephala of Cuba. 
