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Show 1875.] DR. O. FINSCH ON A N E W CROWNED PIGEON. 631 stances of adaptation I have witnessed. I could not finish admiring, and thought that never had any thing so beautiful fallen in m y way before; for even the sublime cloud-seeking instinct of the White Egret and the typical Herons seemed less admirable than this; and for some time I continued experimenting, pressing down the bird's head and trying to bend him by main force into some other position ; but the strange rigidity remained unrelaxed, the fixed attitude unchanged. I also found, as I walked round him, that, as soon as 1 got to the opposite side and he could no longer twist himself on his perch, he whirled his body with great rapidity the other way, instantly presenting the same front as before. Finally I plucked him forcibly from the rush and perched him on my hand, upon which he flew away ; but he flew only fifty or sixty yards off, and dropped into the dry grass. Here he again put in practice the same instinct so ably that 1 groped about for ten or twelve minutes before refinding him, and was astonished that a creature to all appearance so weak and frail should have strength and endurance sufficient to keep its body rigid and in one attitude for so long a time. 10. On a new Species of Crown-Pigeon. By OTTO FINSCH, Ph.D., C.M.Z.S. [Received November 8, 1875.] , (Plate LXVIII.) GOURA SCHEEPMAKERI, sp. nov. (Plate LXVIII.) Slate-blue ; wings and tail darker, the latter with a broad ashy apical margin ; crop and breast of a dark vinaceous purplish brown ; vent, lower flanks, and under tail-coverts of a lighter slate-blue than the upper parts ; wings and tail at the inner webs and from below slate-black ; the first six wing-coverts of the secondaries whitish ashy, narrowly tipped with blackish, the remaining coverts of the secondaries slate-black like the first row of the upper wing-coverts; the light whitish ashy area on the middle of the wing therefore margined above by a broad black cross band ; remaining upper wing-coverts blackish, with dark slate-grey apical margins, the upper wing-coverts therefore darker than the back ; lower wing-coverts slate-black; lores and eye-region black, forming a conspicuous area which extends to the base of the crown-feathers; a very high and compressed semicircular crest of a pale ashy colour passing into whitish ashy under certain lights, at the base bluish ashy ; this crown, of which the longest feathers are about 5f inches long, is composed in the same manner as in G. coronata, by the hairy radii being disunited and dispersed from the straight rhachis in an acute angle. Bill dark horn-colour, with a pale tip ; feet blackish brown, toes lighter, nails blackish. Long. ala?. caud. culm. rict. tars. dig. med. ung. 12'" 6'" 9" 16'" 23'" 3'" 2"' 19'" 7"' |