The true Pigeon Hollandais.



159



feathers of the wings and tail are dark-blue grey, almost black, with

a thin border of very light grey; feet blue-grey.


I will report later when the young pigeon assumes its

parents’ plumage.



THE TRUE PIGEON HOLLANDAIS.


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


In view of Lieut. Delacour’s interesting account of the breed¬

ing of the new Pigeon Hollandais [Alectrcenas jpulcherrima ), it seems

opportune to publish a photograph of its namesake, the true Pigeon

Hollandais (A. nitidissima), now unfortunately extinct. Only one of

the three existing specimens is in the United Kingdom, for the bird

supposed to be in the British Museum cannot now be found. The

sole specimen in these islands is in the Royal Scottish Museum at

Edinburgh.


This individual was first recognised by the late Prof. Newton,

on September 2Gth, 1879, when inspecting the bird collection at the

Museum. It had been acquired by the Museum in 1816 as part of

the collection of Dufresne, a dealer in natural history objects, who

afterwards became Aide-Naturalist e at the Paris Museum. By the

kindness of Mr. Eagle Clarke, the writer was enabled on June 4th,

1915, to examine and photograph this rarity. It was still in excellent

condition, and retained well the Dutch colours to which it owed

its name.


Some years previously the writer also examined in the

Museum of the Jardin des Plantes one of the two specimens brought

home by their discoverer, Pierre Sonnerat, in 1781. One of them

seems to have been lost, though Ooenraad Temminck, the first

director of the Leyden Museum, saw both of them in the last

century. They are known, however, to have been at one time

exposed to the fumes of sulphuric acid, and one may have been

thought not worth keeping, and carelessly thrown away, like the

Dodo in the Museum at Oxford. The surviving specimen is care¬

fully preserved under a separate glass shade, but the photograph

taken by the writer was not good enough to reproduce here. It was



