PHLOGOENAS CRUENTA.
Ked-breasted Pigeon.
La Tourterelle grise ensanglantée, Sonn. Voy. a la Nouv. Guin., p. 52, pi. 21.
-------------------blanche ensanglantée, Sonn. Id., p. 51, pi. 20.
Red-breasted Turtle, Lath. Gen. Syn., vol. iv. p. 657.
Sanguine Turtle, Lath. Id., p. 657, and Gen. Hist., vol. viii. p. 91.
Columba cruenta, Gmel. Edit. Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 7 8 5—Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 611.
----------- sanguinea, Gmel. Id., p. 785.—Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 611.
Golumbi-galline poignardé, Knip et Temm. Les Pig. part ii (Les Colombi-gallines), p. 16, pi. 8 et pi. 9, var.
Columba Luzonica, Scop. Del. Flor. et Faun. Insub.
-----------nivea, Scop., var.
Red-breasted Pigeon, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. viii. p. 90.
Calcenas Luzonica, Gray, L ist of Spec, of Birds' in Coll. Brit. Mus., part iii. p. 18.
Calcenas ? luzonica, Gray, Gen. of Birds, vol. ii. p« 478, Calcenas, sp. 3.
—-------- cruenta, Cab.
Phlegoenas luzonica, Reich. Syst. Av., t. ccxxv.fig. 1265, var., et tab. ccxxvii. f. 2479.
Phlegoenas cruenta, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av., tom. ii. p. 88, Phlegoenas, sp. 1.
Phlogcenas cruenta, Sclat. in Proc. o f Zool. Soc., 1863, p. 377.
Phlegoenas luzonica, Wall. Ibis, 1865, p. 392.
A mong the many advantages afforded to the ornithologist by the unrivalled collection of birds contained in
the menagerie o f the Zoological Society of London, are the opportunities given him from time to time of
becoming acquainted with living examples of species of which probably he had before only seen but
indifferent skins; he is thereby enabled not only to observe their individual peculiarities, but to ascertain
many details as to their colouring, particularly of their soft parts, which, from their fading immediately
after death, could not otherwise be ascertained. The circumstance of several living examples of the old
Columba cruenta of Gmelin, the Red-breasted Pigeon of Latham, being at this time (March 1866) in the
Gardens o f the Society, enables me to give a correct delineation of a bird which has been made the type
o f the genus Phlogcenas by Reichenbach—a form of which four species are all that are known. They are
all insular birds, being natives of Manilla, Java, Sumatra, the Celebes, and New Guinea. The one here
represented is said to be from the Philippines, but from which o f them is still uncertain, although we
have been aware of the existence of the bird for nearly eighty years ; Latham merely says: “ Perouse
met with these, which he called ‘ Stabbed Doves,’ at Morvula, one of the Philippine Islands.” Judging
from the living examples in the Zoological Society’s Gardens there appears to he little or no outward
difference in the sexes. Like many other members of the Columbidce or family of Pigeons, they readily
become accustomed to captivity; and if any foreign species could be domesticated and acclimatized in this
country, the Red-breasted Pigeon seems to be the one with which the experiment would be most likely
to succeed, as their long legs would indicate them to spend much of their time on the ground.
Forehead and crown delicate grey; occiput and hinder part of the neck deep violaceous grey with purple
reflexions; back, scapularies, lesser wing-coverts, and sides of the breast slaty grey with purple and red
reflexions, each feather with a lunate mark o f metallic green at the tip ; throat and breast white below,
while all the under surface is of a clear pale cinnamon hue, at the junction of the two colours a large patch
of blood-red, giving the bird a wounded appearance, whence the specific name; middle and greater wing-
coverts reddish purple for three-fourths of their length, their tips being grey and forming three bands across
the wing; the primaries and secondaries deep greyish brown, narrowly margined with reddish; two middle
tail-feathers greyish brown, the remainder grey at the base, crossed in the middle by a band of black and
tipped with ash-grey; irides dark brown; bill blackish brown ; nostrils grey; legs and feet purplish red.
The figures are of the size of life. The plant is the Sonerila margarifacea.