On a new species of Treron from the island of Sumba (Sandelwood)

Mr. Teysmann, the indefatigable honorary Inspector of the cultures at Buitenzorg in Java, collected, amongst other objects of Natural history, several years ago, during a visit to the island of Sumba, commonly called Sandelwoodisland, two specimens of a pigeon of the genus Treron, which appears to belong to a species hitherto unknown to naturalists. This bird, dedicated to a gentlemen, who has rendered so many services to science, has its next allied species in Treron psittacea from Timor and in Treron floris inhabiting the island from which its epithet is taken. Ornithologists will remember that I brought the two latter species in a separate subdivision, distinguished from some other allied species of which Treron aromatica is the most remarkable, by their somewhat more lengthened tail. This subdivision was characterized by me (Muséum des Pays-Bas, tome 4, Columbae, p. 58) in the following terms. “Queue un peu allongée. Teintes générales du plumage d’un vert jaune, passablement vif en arrière du manteau, légèrement lavé de grisâtre sur les autres parties et se répandant uniformément sur tout le dessous de l’oiseau. De larges lisérés jaunes aux couvertures alaires grandes et moyennes, plus étroites aux rémiges secondaires. Blanc grisâtre du dessous des rectrices clair et occupant plus du dernier tiers de leur longueur. Souscaudales vertes, mais très largement bordées de blanc roussâtre.” We have seen by this general diagnosis of the two species, that the male and female are of the same coloring, or in other words, that the male has not, as in Treron aromatica and griseicauda, the shoulders dark grey, nor the shoulder-feathers and the mantle tinged with brownish red inclining to purple. Our new species showing this same color, only on the hindest part of the mantle and the hinder shoulder-feathers, this circumstance leads to an addition to the diagnosis of the subdivision, giving at the same time a very conspicuous characteristic to our new species.