Macropygia tenuirostris Bonaparte, Consp. Gen. Avium (1854), 2,
57; Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1893), 21, 346; Whitehead,
Ibis (1899), 491; Sharpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 74; McGregor and
Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 13.
Macropygia eurycerca Tweeddale, Proc. Zool. Soc. (1878), 288
(young).
Ba-tic'-la-uin', Manila; i-bu-oo, Benguet Igorot.
Balabac (Everett); Basilan (Everett, Steere Exp., Bourns &
Worcester, McGregor); Bohol (McGregor); Bongao (Everett); Leyte
(Whitehead); Luzon (Meyer, Heriot, Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester,
Whitehead, McGregor); Marinduque (Steere Exp.); Masbate (Bourns &
Worcester); Mindanao (Everett, Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester);
Mindoro (Bourns & Worcester, McGregor, Porter); Negros (Meyer,
Steere, Everett, Keay); Palawan (Lempriere, Whitehead, Platen,
Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester); Romblon (McGregor); Sibutu
(Everett); Sibuyan (McGregor); Sulu (Burbidge); Tawi Tawi (Bourns
& Worcester).
Adult male.--Head, sides of neck and breast, and lower parts bright
cinnamon-rufous, much lighter on throat and chin, darker on flanks,
under tail-coverts, and rectrices; above including wings and tail
dark brown; most of the feathers except remiges and rectrices,
edged with fine rufous dots; feathers of neck covered with irregular
vermiculations of rufous and blackish brown; sides of neck and of
body and crop marked with a few black cross-lines; neck and its sides
glossed with amethystine changing to green; metallic colors extending
faintly onto back and rump; rectrices from above dark brown, except
two outermost pairs which are cinnamon-rufous, each crossed by a
diagonal black bar; next pair similar but more obscurely colored;
inner webs of primaries edged with cinnamon. Iris of three rings,
outermost reddish or crimson, middle ring black, innermost pale
straw; skin around eye dirty brown; eyelids and basal half of bill
crimson; distal end of bill brown; legs and feet bright crimson;
nails brown. Length, about 394; three males average, wing, 189; tail,
200; exposed culmen, 16; tarsus, 23.
Adult female.--Nearly like the male but with very little if any
metallic gloss; neck and its sides black, barred with light cinnamon;
crop and lower throat more or less barred and vermiculated with black.
Young.--A young bird from Sibuyan with tail less than half grown
differs from the adult female in the throat- and breast-feathers being
blackish brown, edged with rufous, and in having bars of upper parts
more sharply cut, being produced by solid colors rather than by dots;
the rectrices seen from above have narrow rufous tips and from below,
each is crossed by a narrow, subterminal gray line.
The adult plumage is here described from a pair of birds taken at
Irisan, Benguet Province, on May 1, 1903. That these were breeding
birds was shown by dissection and was noted on the tags. If the
rusty edges are absent from the wing-coverts of fully adult birds
then it must require two or possibly three years for them to attain
that plumage.
"Exceedingly common in some localities. Frequents open ground
surrounded by patches of second growth. When flushed it frequently
alights in trees. Eyes yellow; legs and feet red. Length, 370;
culmen, 19; wing, 165; tail, 184; tarsus, 22; middle toe with claw,
33." (Bourns and Worcester MS.)
"Common among the mountains of north Luzon, and found nesting on
the summit of Monte Data, where the large tracts of dead bracken
ferns afford it good protection. I saw a young one nearly ready
to fly on 28th of January on this mountain. This dove is also
plentiful in the lowland forests, and is distributed throughout the
Archipelago." (Whitehead.)