Description
The feathers on the head, neck and breast of the Mauritius Blue Pigeon were silvery white, long, stiffened and pointed, especially around the neck. A patch of bright red, naked skin surrounded the eyes, and extended across the cheeks to the beak, which was greenish with a dark tip. The plumage of the body was indigo, and the back, scapular feathers and wings were metallic blue. The base of the outer rectrices was partially blackish blue. The tail feathers and tail coverts were maroon. The legs were dark slate-grey. The iris was reddish orange and had an inner yellow ring. The bird was 30 cms (12 in) in length, the wings were 208 mm (8.2 in), the tail was 132 mm (5.2 in), the culmen was 25 mm (1 in), and the tarsals were 28 mm (1.10 in). It was the largest and most robust member of its genus, and the hackles were longer and covered a larger area than in other blue pigeons.
Unlike the three surviving skins of Mauritius Blue Pigeons, one of two illustrations (the other is in black-and-white) of a live individual kept in the Netherlands around 1790 shows a red forehead. Both sexes of the Seychelles Blue Pigeon also have red foreheads, and Julian Hume has suggested that the image depicts a male, which was described as "infinitely more handsome" than the female by Cossigny in the mid-1700s. Hume therefore interprets the three surviving skins as belonging to female specimens. A Mauritian woman recalling observations of Mauritius Blue Pigeons around 1815 mentioned green as one of its colours. Juvenile Seychelles and Comoro Blue Pigeons have green feathers, so this may also have been the case for juvenile Mauritian Pigeons.
Some depictions and descriptions have shown the legs of Mauritius Blue Pigeons as red, like those of the Madagascar Blue Pigeon. The legs of the Paris specimen were painted red when the original colour faded, presumably on the basis of such accounts. The legs of the two other surviving specimens have not been painted and have faded to a yellowish brown. The bird has also recently been depicted with facial crenulations, like those of the Seychelles Blue Pigeon. Neither feature is mentioned in contemporary accounts, and such depictions are thought to be erroneous.
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