PTILONOPUS NANUS.
Tiny Fruit-Pigeon.

Columba naina, Temm. PI. Col. iv. pl. 252.—Knip and Temm. Iconogr, Pigeons pl. 59
Ptilonopus naina, Gray, Gen. B. ii. p. 467. " —
Tonotreron nana, Reich. Handb. Columbe, p. 100, taf. ccxxxix. fig. 1330.
Totreron nana, Bp. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 25.

Piilonopus nanus, Wall. Ibis, 1865, p. 381.—Gray, Hand-l. B. ii. p. 226.
Ptilopus nanus, Schl. Mus. P.-B. Columbe, p. 21.

 

Tuts is one of the rarest, as it is one of the most recognizable, of the small Pédonop or Many-coloured
Fruit-Pigeons, a group of birds which finds its greatest development in the Malay archipelago and Oceania.
The small size and peculiar coloration readily distinguish this species from all the other members of the
genus Péilonopus.

Nothing has been recorded respecting the habits of this elegant little Pigeon. It was first discovered by
Salomon Miiller in Triton Bay, or Lobo, in New Guinea; and for many years his specimen remained unique.
More recently, however, the Dutch traveller M. Hoedt has discovered it in Mysol; and as one or two of his
specimens reached England, I have been enabled to figure it in the present work. The Leiden Museum
also possesses two examples of M. Hoedt’s collecting, the localities being Kasim and Waigaama, both in the
island of Mysol. ‘They were obtained in the months of June and July respectively.

Adult male.—Bright grass-green above and below, all the greater wing-coverts and inner secondaries
plainly edged with bright lemon-yellow, before which is a broad subterminal band of bright, rather metallic,
bluish green; primaries greyish black on their inner web, dark green on the outer, with a narrow edging
of yellow to the secondaries ; tail deep green; on each side of the neck a broad crescentic mark of pale
grey; across the top of the abdomen a broad band of purple feathers, with some metallic bluish-green
subterminal bars to most of them, the abdominal plumes tipped with yellow ; under tail-coverts bright
yellow ; thighs whitish ; under wing-coverts dark grey like the mner linmg of the wing, the outermost of
the coverts greenish with a parrow yellow edging.

The female has no abdominal spot.

As above stated, the Plate has been drawn from examples in my own cabinet, the figures representing both

sexes of the natural size.