Subgenus ALSOCOMUS. 

 Tarsus shorter and tail longer than in Palumbits. 



ALSOCOMUS PUNICEUS. 



(THE PURPLE WOOD-PIGEON.) 



Alsocomus puniceus, Tickell, J. A. S. B. 1842, xi. p. 462 ; Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. 



p. 233 (1849) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, xiv. p. 58 ; Jerdon, B. of Ind. iii. 



p. 462 (1864); Beavan, Ibis, 1868, p. 373; Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 466 ; Ball, Str. 



Feath. 1874, p. 424, et 1878, vii. p. 224; Armstrong, ibid. 1876, p. 337 ; Davison & 



Hume, ibid. 1878, B. of Tenass. p. 418. 

 Kurunda kdbceya, Neeyang kobceya, lit. " Season Pigeon " {a/pud Layard), Sinhalese. 



Adult male. (Brit. Museum, Tenasserim) Wing 8*5 inches ; tail 6-0 : tarsus 1*0 ; bill at point <>7. 

 (Tenasserim) "Length 14-12 to 15-G ; wing 8*2 to 8-5, expanse 25-0 to 26-25; tail 5'5 to 6-6 ; tarsus 0-9 to l'l; bill 

 from gape l'l to 1'2." 



/-' male. " Length 14-75 inches ; wing 8-4, expanse 2.5-25 ; tail 5-5 ; tarsus 1-0; bill from gape 1-2 " (Hume). 

 i [rrawaddy delta, Armstrong) " Length 15-75 inches ; w Lag 8'65 : tail 6-1 ; tarsus 1-0 ; bill to gape 1-05." 



•' Iris orange; bill purplish, tipped with horny ; legs and feet purplish red " (Armstrong). 



" Irides deep orange or pale yellow ; eyelids bright red; orbital skin purplish pink : horny portion of bill bluish white, 

 pest of liill and gape lake-pink ; legs and feet purplish or lake-pink" (Hume). 



i British Museum.) Forehead, lores, crown, and nape pale slaty greyish; lower part of face, ear-coverts, throat, and 

 neck light coppery sienna, intensif] ing or becoming more vivid on the fore neck and under surface, and illumined with 

 greenish bronze on the chest and hind neck ; back, scapulars, wing-coverts, and inner secondaries copper-colour, 

 blending into the paler hue of the crown, and the feathers broadly tipped with metallic amethystine red ; primary- 

 coverts, primaries, and secondaries slaty brown, the primaries pale on the inner webs; under tail-coverts dark 

 ashy slate, blending into the colour of the lower breast ; under wing-eoverts bronze-red. 



The female is said to be duller in its tints than the male. 



Obs. The small genus to which this Pigeon belongs is an Indian one, and consists of two species only, the second of 

 which (A. hodgsoni) inhabits Nepal and other mountains of the sub-Himalayan districts. These birds differ but 

 little from the true Wood-Pigeons, and might well be classed in the genus Palumbus. A. hodgsoni is a larger bird 

 than the present, measuring, according to Jerdon, 9 to 9J inches in the wing. It differs chiefly in having the 

 median wing-eoverts and flanks spotted with white, and the sides of the neck and underparts with a ruddy mesial 

 stn ak to cadi feather. 



Distribution. — Layard is the only naturalist who lias recorded this Pigeon as a Ceylonese bird ; and there 

 i^ a specimen of his collecting in the Poole museum. His remarks on the species are as follows : — "This bird 

 is but rarely a visitant of our island. I believe it appears during the fruiting of the cinnamon-tree ; the natives 

 ali assure me of this." Had not Layard actually obtained specimens, and satisfactorily identified the bird, I should 

 be inclined to doubt its occurrence in Ceylon. But it cannot well be a seasonal visitor, depending on the fruit 

 of the cinnamon, otherwise it would occur annually, which it certainly does not, and it can only be looked upon 

 as a rare straggler to the island. I once met with a flock of Pigeons, which I found frequenting cinnamon- 

 bushes near liorella, early one morning at the latter end of 1869. I did not, however, succeed in procuring 

 any, as they were very shy and took flight at once. They were about the size of the present species and of 

 a biown colour, so that it is probable that they were the Purple Wood-Pigeon, as there is no other kind which 

 would answer to the description. As it visits Ceylon it is strange that it has not been detected in Southern 

 India ; neither Jerdon nor any subsequent naturalist has met with it in the south of the peninsula. Jerdon 



