_Alectroenas nitidissimus_ G. R. Gray, Hand-list II, p. 228, No. 9164 (1870). _Alectoroenas nitidissimus_ A. Newton, P. Z. S. 1879, pp. 2-4. Sonnerat's original description, translated into English, is as follows: "It is much larger than the European Woodpigeon; the feathers of the head, neck and breast are long, narrow, and end in a point. These feathers are rather curiously constructed, they have the polish, brilliancy, and feel of a cartilaginous blade. I could not, with the aid of a lens, distinguish whether these blades were formed by the conglomeration of the barbules, but we may take it for granted that they are constituted in a like manner to the wing appendages of the Bohemian Waxwing and the cartilaginous blades of Sonnerat's Jungle Fowl. The eye is surrounded by naked skin of a deep red; the back, the wings and the belly are of a dark blue; the rump and tail are of a very bright carmine red; the beak and iris are of the same colour, and the feet are black." Undoubtedly quite extinct. Only three specimens are known of this bird: one in Edinburgh, one in Paris, and one in Mauritius. Some bones were collected by the Rev. H. H. Slater. Habitat: Mauritius. {164} ALECTROENAS(?) RODERICANA (MILNE-EDWARDS). _Columba rodericana_ Milne-Edwards, Ann. Sc. Nat. (5) XIX art. 3, p. 16, pl. 12, ff. 1, 1a, 1b, 1c (1874). The original description of the sternum is as follows:--"It belongs to a species small in size, barely as large as _T. tympanistria_, but evidently much better built for flight. In fact the most striking characters of this sternum are the large size of the bouclier, the large size of the lateral notches, and the shape of the keel, whose anterior angle is not much produced in front. The coracoidal grooves are large and only slightly oblique. The lateral branches detach themselves from the bone in front of the costal facets--they are very widely spread, and stretch more directly outwards than in the remainder of the species of the family. The lower lateral branches are equally divergent, and the median blade of the posterior edge is remarkable from its enlargement. The keel is moderately prominent, its anterior angle is much rounded, and does not reach the level of the episternal apophysis, as is the case, as a rule, in the pigeons. All these peculiarities, to which must be added the general flattening of the bone which is hardly at all sloped like a roof, separate the pigeon of Rodriguez very widely, not only from _Erythroena_ and _Turtur_, but also from _Vinago_. In its shape in general, by the little pronounced keel and the direction of the latter, this sternum presents certain analogies to the essentially arboreal species such as those of the genus _Carpophaga_, but they all differ in having the space for the costal facets on the sides of the sternum much more extended, the superior lateral branches larger, and the latter arising further back, so that the lateral notches are smaller.