Birds of Prince's Is/and. 629 



The Green Fruit-Pigeon is exceedingly common all over 

 the island, and according to Dohrn, hatches its young in 

 September. Curiously enough, this species is not found on 

 the islands of St. Thomas or Annobon^ in the former of 

 which the Fruit-Pigeons are represented by the much larger 

 bird Vinago sanctithomai, 



V. calva is, therefore, restricted in the Gulf of Guinea to 

 Princess Island and Fernando Po, but on the mainland has 

 an extensive distribution on the West Coast. 



42. *Tiirtiirceiia malherLei. 



lurturwna malherhei (Verr.) ; Salvadori, Orn. Golfo d. 

 Guinea^ i. 1903^ p. 11 ; Bocage, Jorn. Sci. Lisboa^ 1903, 

 p. 50. 



a. S ad. 28. ii. 09. 



6. ? . 2. iii. 09. 



c-e. ^ $ ad. et imm. 3. iii. 09. 



/. S ad. 11. iii. 09. 



g. S ad. 17. iii. 09. 



When Salvadori wrote the twenty-first volume of the 

 ' Catalogue of Birds,^ the adult male of this Pigeon was 

 unknown to him. He has, however, since described it in 

 his paper cited above. A good series of this apparently 

 rare Pigeon was procured by Boyd Alexander. The type 

 locality of this species is given as Gaboon, but apart from 

 the typical specimen, on the data of which no reliance 

 can be placed, it has never again been recorded from 

 the mainland, T. malherbei is a native of the islands in 

 the Gulf of Guinea, in all of which it is found with the 

 exception of Fernando Po, where, curiously enough, it has 

 never been recorded. Dohrn, in his paper on the Birds of 

 Prince's Island, says that this Pigeon is very rare. He only 

 saw a few specimens during his stay of six months in the 

 island, and the skins were, with one exception, spoiled by 

 humidity and insects. Until the present series was sent 

 home by Boyd Alexander, the species was poorly repre- 

 sented in the British Museum ; the present set of skins 

 is therefore of exceptional value. 



