THE



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Bxucultural Aagasinc,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURA L SOCIETY.



New Series —VOL. IV. — No. 8 .—-All rights reserved JUNE, 1906.



NOTES ON THE MAIDEN DOVE.


Calopclia puella.


By Arthur G. Butler, Pli.D.


This beautiful African Bronzewing was first described by

Schlegel in 1848; and, on that account doubtless, the list of the

animals in the Zoological Society’s Gardens gives to it the trivial

name of ‘ Schlegel’s Dove’ : it is however usual to apply a name

of this character to species described in honour of naturalists or

others, as an English equivalent of the specific denomination.

The only Dove named in honour of Schlegel is a Bronzewing

from New Guinea and Papua —Hetiicophaps albifrons, described

by G. R. Gray in 1861 and renamed Rfhjynchoenas schlegeli in the

year following: I have therefore adopted the German trivial

name for the present species.


Dr. Russ in his “ Fremdlandischen Stubenvogel ” (vol. II,

p. 791) makes the following remarks:—“ This very beautiful and

stately dove is an inhabitant of West Africa and lives in the

bush. In the year 1870 it first arrived at the Eondon Zoological

Gardens and afterwards at the Amsterdam Gardens in the year

1884. The same year the wholesale dealer W. Cross of Liverpool

sent me two doves which from the first proved tame, confiding

and peaceable in the bird room. Then in the year 1S88 Miss

Chr. Hagenbeck of Hamburg had two doves of this species at

the exhibition of the“Ornis” Society, and subsequently it has

been imported several times with us, but has not yet been bred.”


With the beautiful plate before us, it is unnecessary to

describe this dove here, but it may be as well to note that the

metallic spots on the inner greater wing-coverts and largest



