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The Pigeon Hollandais.



THE PIGEON HOLLANDAIS.


By Graham Benshaw, M.D., F.R.S.E.


Some years ago there was living in the Western Aviary at the

Zoo a curious pigeon which had been received from the Seychelles.

The bird was of arboreal habit, sitting sluggishly on its perch, which

it grasped with well-developed, powerful feet. Its head was crimson

above, the neck and breast were grey, the upper parts and tail blue-

black : the orbits, lores, and forehead were wattled. The writer at

once recognised it as one of the wart pigeons {Alectrcenas) . Now

although attractive from its rarity and also on account of its quaint

yet beautiful coloration, the full interest of this specimen does not

appear to have been grasped by aviculturists. The bird was already

in poor health when photographed by the writer ; no paper relating

to it having appeared in the interval since its death, the present

account may be of interest.


The specimen in question—the Alectrcenas pulcherrima of

naturalists—is known as the “Pigeon Hollandais” in the Seychelles.

The reason for this is very curious : many years ago there existed

[not in the Seychelles but in Mauritius] an allied species, then also

called Pigeon Hollandais. This bird ( Alectrcenas nitidissima) had

the head and neck white ; the back, wings, and under parts indigo ;

the rump, tail and tail-coverts crimson ; its popular name, in fact,

denoted that it wore the colours of the Dutch flag. It was dis¬

covered by Sonnerat, who brought home two specimens in 1781.

He appears to have been an early aviculturist, for one of his birds,

still in the Natural History Museum at Paris, shows by its broken

feathers the effects of prolonged confinement in a cage. About 1815

M. Dufresne had another specimen, but whether alive is not known ;

this bird is now in the Edinburgh Museum. To-day three museum

specimens—in Paris, Edinburgh, and Port Louis (Mauritius) — are all

that is left of a fine species.


Uno avulso non deficit alter. The name “Pigeon Hollandais”

was transferred to the Alectrcenas pulcherrima , although its colora¬

tion was markedly different, and it did not represent the colours of

the Dutch flag. The present species is not a very accurate under¬

study of its departed relative ; thus the neck and breast are grey



