CARPOPHAGIN^E. 455 



These Pigeons are of very large size, and adorned, in many 

 cases, with rich and metallic colors, with the lower parts usually 

 pale and glossless. The tarsus is very short, and the feet broad, 

 enabling them to grasp the branches well. The forehead is low in its 

 profile, and the feathers advance on the soft portion of the bill. 

 Their gape is wide, and they are enabled to swallow very large 

 fruit ; and the feathered portion of the chin advances far towards 

 the tip of the lower mandible, thus increasing the width of the 

 gape. All those whose nidification is known, lay but one egg. 



Gen. Carpophaga, Selby. 



Syn. Muscadivores, Lesson, apud Gray — Ducula, Hodgson 

 (partly). 



Char. — Those of the sub-family : plumage glossy metallic 

 green, or coppery brown above ; of large size. 



I have joined Hodgson's genus Ducula to Carpophaga, as I 

 have been unable to find any characters to separate them, except 

 partly of color. There are, however, several types which might 

 be distinguished as sectional. Some appear only to differ from 

 the rest by having a knob developed at the base of the bill, and 

 to these Bonaparte's name Globicera is applied. 



780. Carpophaga sylvatica, Tickell. 



C. oenea, apud Jerdon, Cat. 284 — Blyth, Cat. 1401 — Figured 

 Beng. Sport. Review, 1845, pi. 3. — C. pusilla, Blyth, Cat. 1402 — 

 Dunkul or Doomkul, H. also Sona kabutra, IT. — Burraharrial, H. 

 of some — Pogonnah, Mai. — Kakaraui guiua,Te\. — Imperial Pigeon 

 of Europeans in the South of India. 



The Green Imperial Pigeon. 



Descr. — Head, neck, and whole under parts, pearl-grey, purer 

 on the crown and breast, and tinged elsewhere, and sometimes on 

 the crown, with ruddy vinaceous ; back, rump, wings, and tail, 

 shining coppery green, brightest on the tail, and the quills slaty- 

 grey without, dark blackish grey within ; under tail-coverts deep 

 chesnut, with which some of the feathers of the vent and flanks 

 are also sprinkled ; chin, orbital feathers, and round the base of 

 the bill, white ; axillaries buff. 



