614 
Birds of Celebes; Treronidae. 
Immature male. Closely resembling the female; forehead green with the pm-ple feathers of 
the crown intermingled; dark purple breast-band commencing to form; breast greyer 
than hi female ([(^J near Manado, Aug.— Sept. 1892; Nat. Coll. — C 10890). 
Young in first plumage. Bright parrot-green, the iving-coverts and secondaries broadly mar- 
gined with light yellow, the back, rump and scapulars and breast more finely mar- 
gined with yellow; remaining under- parts much as in the female; tail tipped with 
yellowish white; no puiple on head or elsewhere (near Manado, Aug. — Sept. 1892; 
Nat. Coll. — 0 10895). 
Measurements. Wing 128 — 140 mm; tail 95c.; tarsus 22 c.; cuhnen from cranium suture 17 — 19. 
Distribution. Celebes and ?Sooloo; North Celebes — Mnahassa (Wall, c 2, 4, Bos. f 2, etc.); 
South Celebes — Maros Elver (Wallace g 1), Tjamba Distr. (Platen ZZT), Bonthain 
Mts. (Everett 6)-, Sooloo Islands (Gruillein d 2). 
This many-hued Pigeon is a common bird in parts of the Minahassa, where 
our native hunters collected nearly 50 examples in August and September, 
I 89‘2, between Manado and Arakan, and 6 near Tondano. It seems to he absent 
on the islands off the coast, such as Manado tua and Togian; nor has it been 
recorded from any part of Celebes itself except the Northern and Southern Pen- 
insulas. In the stomach Meyer found the waringin, a species of fig. 
P. temmincki is most like P. superbus (Temra.) of the Moluccas, Papuasia 
and North Australia, the male of which may best be distinguished by its having 
the dark plum-purple lower breast-band sharply marked off from the dark la- 
vender-grey of the breast, while in P. temmincki the breast is rose -purple and 
gradually merges into the intense plum-purple band. The females are as easily 
distinguishable, that of P. superhus by a small occipital spot of dark blue, that 
of P. temmincki by a much more extensive spot of aster- purple. Together the 
two species form the subgenus Lampi-otreron. 
Perhaps the most remarkable point in connection with the plumage of this 
bird is the broad dark pm-ple patch on the carpal region, which in the living 
bird is no doubt continuous with the breast band of the same colour. This 
produces a wide band embracing parts of the body which have nothing to do 
with one another — the wings and the breast. Mi-. Keeler accounts for similar 
markings by the theory of sexual selection — a process not occurring in nature, 
as females never select males; but it appears that the colour of a spot affects 
the area around it. The quills and greater coverts of the Cuckoo, Phoenicophaes 
calorhpnckus , are steel -blue -black, the other coverts and scapulars are chestnut, 
yet where the edges of the greater coverts and quills come in contact with the 
other feathers they are chestnut, and some of the concealed parts of the greater 
coverts are suffused with that colour. So, also, in very many birds the under 
wing-coverts (a hidden character) partake of the colour of the sides of the body, 
with which they come in contact. 
The first primary of the present Pigeon is remarkably attenuated, as in 
many other Pigeons, at the tip, and the position of the first primary under the 
wing in these Pigeons, and the peculiar flight of these birds brings conviction 
that mechanical attrition should be assigned as the cause of the attenuation, as 
