()34 Birds of Celebes: Colmubidae. 



Adult. Blackish slaty; chin, throat, cheeks and ear-coverts white; head above 

 glossed with magenta-puriile , becoming moi'e wine-purple on mantle, neck, and 

 fore neck; upper parts and Aving-coverts bordered A\ath metallic bronze-green 

 and purple; under parts more broadly bordered with purple-bronze; quills and 

 tail above and below black; "bill red, tip white, iris ochre-orange; orbits red; feet 

 dull coral-red, claws pale"' — Wallace 1 (Tagulandang Id., Aug. 1894: Nat. Coll. 

 — C 13446). 



Immature. With the purple-red feathers of the jugulum and breast mixed with others of 

 reddish brown (Ruang Id., Aug. 1894, Nat. Coll. — C 13448). 



Young. "Throat ashy, metalKc edges of the feathers less conspicuous, crown, lower part of 

 front neck, and upper breast brownish; bill and feet brown" (Salvad. 1). 



Measurements (4 ex. Riiang and Tagulandang). Wing 224 — 240 mm; tail 135 — 150; tarsus 

 27—28; bill from feathers of forehead 21—22. 



Distribution. From the Louisiade Islands, S. E. and N. W. New Guinea, Kei, Waigiou, Sala- 

 watti, Mysol, Ceram, Burn, Ternate, Halmahera, Moi'ty, Raou (Salvadori a 5, a 7); 

 Tagulandang and Ruang •) (Nat. Coll. in Dresden and Tring Museums); Banggai 

 (Dresd. Mus. 2). 



This Pigeon is a new and somewhat unexpected addition to the avifauna 

 of the Celebesian su.bregion. Several examples of it were shot by our native 

 hunters in August, 1893, on the island of Tagulandang and on the volcano of Ruang 

 or Gunong api (Fire Mountain), which rises from the sea close to the south of 

 the former island. The volcano is active and dangerous; in 1871 a disastrous 

 eruption, which was witnessed by Meyer, took place (Nature 1871, IV, 286; 

 EowL, Orn. Misc. 1878, III, 324). "Except on the E.S.E. side there was no green, 

 not a tree to be seen, and here only sparingly and in strips. All that had remained 

 from the eruption of the 27''' August, 1870, was destroyed by that of the 

 2"* — \4^^ March, 1871; before that time Ruang was clothed to its summit with vege- 

 tation. The narrowest place between Tagulandang and Ruang is about half an 

 English mile" (Diary). Another eruption took place in 1874. When Dr. Hickson 

 visited the island in 1885 it was only covered with underwood, and Hickson 

 rightly concluded that the whole of the high forest has been destroyed during the 

 eruption of 1871 (Nat. in N. Celebes 1889, 45). 



One may assume that Ruang though not Tagulandang) has been colonised 

 by its present stock of birds chiefly since 1871, or, perhaps, .since the second 

 eruption of 1874, for the destruction of the forests means destruction of the 

 food of the birds which dwell therein. These two small islands form the only 

 point of the Celebesian subregion where the white-throated Pigeon occurs; its 

 presence there is only to be accounted for on the ground of its having reached 

 the islands by flight and, so far as Ruang is concerned, since 1871 ! 



C. alhigularis has close affinities with C. hypoenochroa (Gld.) of New Cale- 

 donia and the Loyalty Islands, which has the head above, neck and jugulum 

 purple -chestnut, and C. vitiensis Q. &G. of Fiji, smaller with a reddish breast 

 and blackish claws; also with C.leopoldi (Tristr.) of the New Hebrides, C . castaneiceps 



') By a lapsus calami we wrote Talaut for Ruang- in 1896 (2). 



