Poenei djamboe (Ptilinopus jambu) was, in the judgement of F. C. van Heurn and R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg in Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh, de meest opvallende en schitterendste duif van Sumatra — the most striking and most brilliant dove of Sumatra — and the type-specimen of the primeval-forest bird that vanishes before cultivation.
Description
The authors describe the bird as green with a brilliant crimson head and a light breast bearing again a crimson-red spot. They note that reeds eeuwen is dit prachtjuweel van Sumatra’s fauna bekend — this jewel of Sumatra’s fauna had been known for centuries — and quote at length the description given by William Marsden in The History of Sumatra (London, 1784, p. 125):
“The punei jambu is smaller than the usual size of doves; the back, wings and tail are green, the breast and crop are white, but the front from the latter has a slight shade of pink; the forepart of the head is of a deep pink, resembling the blossom of the jambu fruit, from whence its name; the white of the breast is continued in a narrow streak, having the green on one side and the pink on the other, half round the eye, which is large, full and yellow, of which colour is also the beak. It will live upon boiled rice and padi, but its favourite food, when wild, is the berry of the rumpunnei (Ardisia coriacea), perhaps from this circumstance so called.”
Ecological argument
The dove serves the authors’ argument about adaptation. They contrast it with the common grey dove (Streptopelia suratensis tigrina), which adapted so easily that it multiplied enormously and became so numerous and so little shy on fields and roads that the birds were repeatedly run over by motor cars; and with the common green dove (Osmotreron vernans), very numerous in the cultivated area, feeding on the ripe berries of Lantana camara, the dominant vegetation on tobacco fields abandoned some years before. Less numerous were the small Osmotreron olax and the golden-green Chalcophaps indica, which required forest though often content with secondary young forest or kampong terrain.
Shyest of all before every advance of civilisation was the poenei djamboe: En toch mag men zeggen, dat de poenei djamboe in het zuivere cultuurgebied nog maar bij uitzondering wordt waargenomen. Men moet haar zoeken in of nabij het oorspronkelijke oerbosch — one may say that the poenei djamboe is only exceptionally observed in the pure cultivated area; one must seek it in or near the original primeval forest.
The species was represented in the collection from East Atjeh, a large part of which came from original primeval forest — and, the authors held, no part of Sumatra contained more extensive primeval forests than Atjeh.
See Also
- Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh
- William Marsden
- F. C. van Heurn
- R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg
- Aloer Djamboe
- Oost-Atjeh
- 1784
Source
Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh, door Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn en Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg, in Jaarberichten (Koloniaal Instituut). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 95-1210
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh by Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn and Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg (Koloniaal Instituut, Jaarberichten). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.