_Phlegoenas Kubaryi_ Finsch, Journ. f. Ornith., 1880, p. 292. (Type
locality, Ruck and Ponapé.)
_Phlegoenas erythroptera_ Bonaparte, Consp. Avium, 2, 1854, p. 89
(Carolines); Reichenbach, Tauben, 1862, p. 41 (Carolines); Finsch,
Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1877 (1878), p. 780 (Ponapé); _idem_,
Ibis, 1881, p. 115 (Ponapé); Schmeltz and Krause, Ethnogr. Abth.
Mus. Godeffroy, 1881, pp. 281, 353 (Ponapé, Ruk); Tristram, Cat.
Birds, 1889, p. 41 (Ruk).
_Phlegoenas kubaryi_ Reichenow and Schalow, Journ. f. Ornith.,
1881, p. 75 (Ruk, Ponapé); Wiglesworth, Abhandl. und Ber. Zool.
Mus. Dresden, no. 6, 1890-1891 (1891), p. 55 (Ruk, Ponapé);
Hartert, Novit. Zool., 7, 1900, p. 8 (Ruk, Ponapé); Matschie,
Journ. f. Ornith., 1901, p. 113 (Ruck, Ponapé); Kuroda, in
Momiyama, Birds Micronesia, 1922, p. 53 (Ruk, Ponapé).
_Phlogoenas erythroptera_ Finsch, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1880,
p. 576 (Ponapé, Ruk); Takatsukasa and Kuroda, Tori, 1, 1915, p. 52
(Ruk).
_Phlogoenas kubaryi_ Salvadori, Cat. Birds British Mus., 21, 1893,
p. 599 (Ruk, Ponapé); Oustalet, Nouv. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris,
(3), 7, 1895, p. 227 (Caroline = Truk); Bolau, Mitteil. Naturhist.
Mus. Hamburg, 1898, p. 68 (Ruck); Reichenow, Die Vögel, 1, 1913,
p. 331 (Karolinen).
_Phlegaenas kubaryi_ Christian, The Caroline Islands, 1899, p. 357
(Ponapé).
_Gallicolumba kubaryi_ Mathews, Syst. Avium Australasianarum, 1,
1927, p. 74 (Caroline Is.); Hand-list Japanese Birds, rev., 1932,
p. 189 (Truk, Ponapé); Peters, Check-list Birds World, 3, 1947, p.
136 (Ruk, Ponapé); Mayr, Proc. 6th Pacific Sci. Congr., 4, 1941,
p. 204 (Ponapé); Bequaert, Mushi, 12, 1939, p. 81 (Ponapé);
_idem_, Occ. Papers Bernice P. Bishop Mus., 16, 1941, p. 266
(Ponapé); Hand-list Japanese Birds, 3d ed., 1942, p. 211 (Truk,
Ponapé).
_Gallicolumba xanthonura kubaryi_ Mayr, Birds Southwest Pacific,
1945, p. 290 (Truk, Ponapé); Baker, Smithson. Misc. Coll., vol.
107, no. 15, 1948, p. 62 (Truk).
_Geographic range._--Micronesia: Caroline Islands--Truk, Ponapé.
_Characters._--Adult male: Resembles adult male of _G. x.
xanthonura_, but larger with crown, nape, and hind neck
sooty-black; upper back and lesser upper wing-coverts
purplish-violet, extending lower on back than in _G. x.
xanthonura_.
Adult female: Resembles adult male, but smaller and paler with
upper back glossy, bronze-green margined with purplish-violet;
lower back and rump glossy, olive-green; upper tail-coverts
greenish-brown; central tail feathers blackish-brown; innermost
secondaries bright, glossy green tinged with bluish.
_Measurements._--Measurements are presented in table 28.
_Specimens examined._--Total number, 21 (9 males, 11 females, 1
unsexed), as follows: Caroline Islands, USNM--Truk, 1 (July);
AMNH--Ponapé, 13 (Nov., Dec.)--Truk, 7 (Jan., Feb., May).
_Nesting._--At Ponapé in November and December, Coultas obtained
specimens which had enlarged gonads. He did not find the nest of
this bird but writes (field notes) that the natives told him that
the nest is placed in the top of the tree fern 10 or 15 feet above
the ground. In contrast, the ground dove at Guam may select a
nesting site considerably higher in the tree. Coultas reports that
one egg is laid by _C. x. kubaryi_.
_Food habits._--Coultas (field notes) writes that the bird feeds
and lives on the ground at Ponapé. He lists food as small snails,
seeds, and worms.
_Parasites._--Bequaert (1939:81 and 1941:266) records the fly
(Hippoboscidae), _Ornithoctona plicata_, from the ground dove at
Ponapé.
_Remarks._--Coultas (field notes) writes that in 1930 the ground dove at
Ponapé was rare in the forested areas and generally found more along the
sea coast and in the upland valleys. Coultas describes its call as an
infrequent shrill, whistle-like call. He writes that hunting by the
Japanese and natives was reducing the population of _G. x. kubaryi_ at
Ponapé in 1930. In 1945, McElroy of the NAMRU2 party found the dove at
Truk on forested slopes in tall trees, and reported that its habits at
Truk were similar to those of _C. x. xanthonura_ at Guam. In 1947-1948,
Richards noted (_in litt._) that the dove at Ponapé was rare (he saw
only one specimen). At Truk, he found the bird to be "rather common" in
thickets, dry gullies, and flying over grassy slopes. He found the bird
near sea level, never in country above 300 feet in altitude and not in
deep forest. I offer no explanation for the conflicting reports
concerning the habits of this species, unless it be that the bird is
capable of varying its habits to fit particular habitats; for example,
in jungle areas it may be ground-living and in open woodlands it may be
tree-living.
_Evolutionary history of Gallicolumba in Micronesia._--There have been
two unrelated invasions of Micronesia by the genus _Gallicolumba_. One
invasion established _G. canifrons_ at the Palau Islands. The other
established the populations of _G. xanthonura_ in the Caroline and
Mariana islands, Mayr (1936:4) points out that _G. xanthonura_ is
related to _G. jobiensis_ (New Guinea and Northern Melanesia), _G.
erythroptera_ (Society and Tuamotu islands), and _G. rubescens_
(Marquesas Islands). This group may be regarded as a superspecies. The
adults of _G. jobiensis_, the male and female, resemble one another. In
both, the head, neck, and auriculoloral stripes are sooty-black; the eye
stripe, chin, throat, and breast are white; the abdomen is dark; and the
upper parts are blackish with a coppery sheen. Immatures are
rusty-brown. _G. xanthonura_ is closely related to _G. jobiensis_, and
they conceivably, along with _G. erythroptera_, might be considered
conspecific. The close relationship between the _G. xanthonura_ in
Micronesia and _G. erythroptera_ has been noted by Oustalet (1896:71).
Among named kinds, _G. x. kubaryi_ most closely resembles _G. jobiensis_
with sooty-black coloring present on the head. The male and female of
_G. x. kubaryi_ closely resemble each other, although immature type of
plumage may occur in adult females as indicated by the immature plumage
of a bird containing well-developed eggs taken at Ponapé by Coultas.
In _G. x. xanthonura_ the male lacks the sooty-black head and has lost
some of the coppery sheen from the middle of the back. The female has
taken on the immature type of plumage, except for occasional near-male
type plumage. In _G. erythroptera_ the male has lost some of the
sooty-black coloring on the forehead, anterior crown, and loral area and
some of the coppery sheen in the middle of the back. The female of _G.
erythroptera_ resembles the female of _G. x. xanthonura_ except that the
throat and breast are faintly outlined by the brownish color. The head
and malar stripe are also outlined in this manner. Some females have
some coppery gloss on the shoulder and a few white feathers on the
breast; these may be considered as in the near-male type of plumage.
The tendencies in the evolution of these insular populations of
_Gallicolumba_ include a reduction of sooty-black on the head and a
reduction of coppery gloss on the back of the male and the reduction of
malelike plumage in the female. _G. rubescens_ of the Marquesas Islands
is smaller and darker. It retains the coppery gloss on the back and has,
in addition, a white bar on the tail and one on the wing. On the basis
of color and structural characters, it is apparent that this
superspecies of _Gallicolumba_ has evolved from a center of evolution in
the region of New Guinea (as shown in figure 14) with a colonization of
Micronesia, from which (probably from _G. x. kubaryi_) an invasion of
eastern Polynesia occurred establishing _G. erythroptera_ in the Society
and Tuamotu islands, although it is also possible that _G. erythroptera_
may have reached Polynesia by way of a more direct route from Melanesia.
Such a pathway of colonization as that just described is not unusual
since representatives of other genera including _Acrocephalus_,
_Myzomela_, and _Zosterops_ may have followed similar paths of dispersal
from Micronesia into Polynesia. Apparently a population isolated in the
Marquesas has evolved the distinctive _G. rubescens_.
=Caloenas nicobarica pelewensis= Finsch