Subgenus ALSOCOMUS. 
Tarsus shorter and tail longer than in Palumbus. 
ALSOCOMUS PUAICEUS. 
(THE PUEPLE 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; Iloldsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 466 ; Ball, Str. 
Feath. 1874, p. 424, et 1878, vii. p. 224; Armstrong, ibid. 1876, p. 337 ; Davison & 
Plume, ibid. 1878, B. of Tenass. p. 418. 
Kurunda kobceya, Neeyang kobceya, lit. “ Season Pigeon ” [apud Layard), Sinhalese. 
Adult male. (Brit. Museum, Tenasserim) Wing 8-6 inches; tail 6-0 ; tarsus 1-0; bill at point 0>7. 
(Tenasserim) “ Length 14-12 to 15-C ; wing 8-2 to 8-5, expanse 25-0 to 26-25 ; tail 5-5 to 6-6 ; tarsus 0-9 to 1-1 : bill 
from gape 1-1 to 1-2.” 
Female. “ Length 14-75 inches ; wing 8-4, expanse 25-25 ; tail 5-5 ; tarsus 1-0; bill from gape 1-2 ” (Hmne). 
(Irrawaddy delta, Armstrmwj) “ Length 15-75 inches ; wing 8-65 ; tail 6-1 ; tarsus 1-0 ; bill to gape 1-05.” 
“ L'is orange ; bill purplish, tipped with horny ; legs and feet pm-plish red ” {Armstrong). 
“ Irides deep orange or pale yellow ; eyelids bright red ; orbital skin purplish pink ; horny portion of bill bluish white, 
rest of bill and gape lake-pink; legs and feet purplish or lake-pink” {Hume). 
(British Museum.) Forehead, lores, crown, and nape pale slaty greyish; lower part of face, ear-coverts, throat, and 
neck light coppery sienna, intensifying or becoming more vivid on the fore neck and under surface, and illumined with 
greenish bronze on the chest and hind neck ; back, scapulars, wdng-coverts, and inner secondai-ies coppcr-colovu-, 
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-coverts bronze-red. 
The female is said to be duller in its tints than the male. 
Ohs. The small genus to w'hich this Pigeon belongs is an Indian one, and consists of tw-o 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 9^ inches in the wing. It differs chiefly in having the 
median wing-coverts and flanks spotted with white, and the sides of the neck and underparts with a ruddy mesial 
streak to each feather. 
Distribution , — Layard is the only naturalist who has recorded this Pigeon as a Ceylonese bird ; and there 
is 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 
all 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 Borella, 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 w^ere about the size of the present species and of 
a brown 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 
