614 Birds of Celebes: Trerouidae. 



Immature male. Closely resembling the female; forehead green with the pui'ple feathers of 

 the crown intermingled; dark purple breast-band commencing to form; breast greyer 

 than in female ([cJ"] near Manado, Aug.— Sept. 1892: Nat. Coll. — C 10890). 



Young in first plumage. Bright parrot-green, the wing-coverts and secondaries broadly mai'- 

 gined with light yellow, the back, rump and scapulars and breast more finely mar- 

 gined with yellow; remaining under- parts much as in the female; tail tipped with 

 yellowish wliite; no purple on head or elsewhere (near Manado, Aug. — Sept. 1892: 

 Nat. Coll. — C 10895). 



Measurements. "Wing 128 — 140 mm; tail 95c.; tarsus 22c.; culmen from craniimi suture 17 — 19. 



Distribution. Celebes and ?Sooloo: North Celebes — IVIiuahassa (Wall, c 2, 4, Ros. f 2, etc.); 

 South Celebes — Maros River (Wallace g 1], Tjamba Distr. (Platen Z/7), Bonthain 

 Mts. (Everett 6)\ Sooloo Islands (Guillem d 2). 



This many-hued Pigeon is a common bird in parts of the Minahassa, where 

 our native hunters collected nearly 50 examples in August and September, 

 1 892, between Manado and Arakan, and 6 near Tondano. It seems to be absent 

 on the islands off the coast, such as Manado tua and Togian; nor has it been 

 recorded from any part of Celebes itself except the Northern and Southern Pen- 

 insulas. In the stomach Meyer found the waringin, a species of fig. 



P. temmincki is most like P. superhus (Temm.) of the Moluccas, Papuasia 

 and North Australia, the male of which may best be distinguished by its having 

 the dark plum-purple lower breast-band sharply marked off from the dark la- 

 vender-grey of the breast, while in P. temmincki the breast is rose -purple and 

 gradually merges into the intense plum-purple band. The females are as easily 

 distinguishable, that of P. superhus by a small occipital spot of dark blue, that 

 of P. temmincki by a much more extensive spot of aster- purple. Together the 

 two species form the subgenus Lamprotreron . 



Perhaps the most remarkable point in connection with the plumage of this 

 bird is the broad dark purple patch on the carpal region, which in the living 

 bii'd is no doubt continuous with the breast band of the same colour. This 

 produces a wide band embracing parts of the body which have nothing to do 

 with one another — the wings and the breast. Mr. Keeler accounts for similar 

 markings by the theory of sexual selection — a process not occurring in nature, 

 as females never select males; but it appears that the colour of a spot affects 

 the area around it. The quills and greater coverts of the Cuckoo, Phoenicophaes 

 calorhi/nchys, are steel -blue -black, the other coverts and scapulars are chestnut, 

 yet where the edges of the greater coverts and quills come in contact with the 

 other feathers they are chestnut, and some of the concealed parts of the greater 

 coverts are suffused with that colour. So, also, in very many birds the under 

 wing-coverts (a hidden character) partake of the colour of the sides of the body, 

 Avith which they come in contact. 



The first primary of the present Pigeon is remarkably attenuated, as in 

 many other Pigeons, at the tip, and the position of the first primary under the 

 wing in these Pigeons, and the peculiar flight of these birds brings conviction 

 that mechanical attrition should be assigned as the cause of the attenuation, as 



