340 ON THE GENUS PTILOPUS. 



wing-coverts, which are nearest to the dorsal part of the wing. The quills and 

 the large wing-coverts are narrowly bordered with citron-yellow. The lower 

 vent is variegated with white and light yellow. On the middle of the belly 

 is a large patch of fine yellow-lead-coloured red. The inferior surface of the 

 wing is grey.'' 



Dr. Meyer sends me, in a letter, the following further particulars about 

 the species in question : — 



" Prof. Schlegel described and figured this curious bird in the year 1863, 

 after a mutilated specimen, and says ' II m'a ete donne comme provenant de 

 la Nouvelle Caledonie.' 



" Mr. Wallace, in his valuable monograph on the Pigeons of the Malay 

 Archipelago (' The Ibis,' 1865, p. 365), does not mention P. insoUfus, although 

 he gives the habitats of several species from the islands on the east of New 

 Guinea, and cites two other Pigeons which Prof. Schlegel had described on 

 the same occasion as P. insolitus. 



''In the year 1873 the last-named author, in his monograph of the 

 Columbce (Mus. P.-B. p. 16), gave up P. insolitus, Schl., as a species, and 

 placed it under the head of P. humeralis jobiensis, Schl. But P. insolitus is 

 distinguished from P. humeralis jobiensis by the following characters, which 

 are obvious, but which could not be clear to Prof. Schlegel, as his single 

 type specimen is mutilated ; it is also in consequence of this fact that the 

 figure which accompanies his paper is insufficient. I collected in the year 

 1873, in the month of April, on the island of Jobi, near Ansus, four specimens 

 of P. humeralis jobiensis, Schl., w^hich are now before me (two males and two 

 females) ; and these give sufficient material to compare with the two speci- 

 mens of P. insolitus, Schl., under examination. The diff^erences of these two 

 birds will be clear at once in comparing Mr. Rowley's description and plates 

 of the last-named species with Prof. Schlegel' s description of P. humeralis 

 jobiensis (Nederl. T. v. d. Dierk, iv. p. 25, 1873) ; and I therefore only 

 mention here the following chief points : — 



