86 
RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 
more of these Pigeons if possible, and subsequently Mr. W. G. 
Woolnough, B.Sc., succeeded in shooting the specimen herein 
referred to, on the islet of Fualifeke, Funafuti Atoll, on 9th 
August, 1897. The Pigeon was presented to the Trustees of the 
Australian Museum. It proved to be a female Globicera pacifica, 
slightly smaller, but precisely similar in plumage to an example 
obtained about the same time from the Rev. IT. A. Robertson of 
Erromanga, New Hebrides. There is, however, scarcely any 
indication of the knob at the base of the bill and it is probably 
similar to the specimen on which Bonaparte bestowed the name 
of Globicera microcera , a synonym of this species. This may be 
due to immaturity, for the feathers surrounding the bill and on 
the chin, are not quite so white as in examples obtained in other 
islands of the Pacific, and in which the knob on the bill is more 
developed. In the Ornithology of the u United States Exploring 
Expedition,”* Cassin, writes as follows of this species: “The 
knob at the base of the bill in this bird is not so greatly 
developed as in some other species, at least this is the case in the 
specimens now before us, from the collection of the Expedition. 
This appendage occurs in several species of the group of fruit- 
eating Pigeons, and is we suspect, not only peculiar to, or largest 
in the male bird, but also most observable at the commencement 
of the season of incubation, like the appendages on the head and 
neck, or wattles, of the turkey.” 
The specimen of G. pacifica from Funafuti, measures: — total 
length 12 f 5 inches, wing 8-8, tail 5-2, bill 0*95, tarsus, 0 95. A 
female from Erromanga measures total length 14*5, wing 9*2, 
tail, 5*6, bill imperf., tarsus 1. 
Since the receipt of the above specimen, Mr. J. Stanley 
Gardiner, B.A , of Caius College, Cambridge, has kindly sent me 
a reprint from The Ibis for January 1898, containing an account 
by Dr. Hans Gadow, of the birds collected by Mr. Gardiner on 
Funafuti, and later on at Rotumah. Nine species were obtained 
on the former atoll, of which A r umenius iahitensis^ Charadrius 
fulvns , Strepsilas inter pres , and Gy pis Candida , are additions to 
its avi-fauna. Dr. Gadow also remarks “ The following species 
was observed but not obtained : — Garpophaga pistrinaria .” 
Evidently this is the Pigeon Mr. Gardiner informed me, on 
his return to Sydney, that he had seen on Funafuti, but was 
unable to identify in the Museum. Hitherto, this species, of 
which we have a fine series in the collection, has only been recorded 
from the Solomon Islands, about a thousand miles from Funafuti. 
It is a larger and much lighter coloured bird, and if well seen 
could hardly be mistaken for Globicera pacifica. If Mr. Gardiner 
is correct in his determination, there are two species of Pigeons 
frequenting the Ellice Group. 
# Cassin — U. S. Expl. Exped. Orn. p. 265 (1858). 
