Gould believed that this species was one of the most attractive of all the gaily coloured pittas. He would have liked to have named it Pitta Rafflesi in dedication to Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, a founder of the Zoological Society, London, because Raffles brought from Sumatra the first specimens to reach England, and gave them to the Society's Museum.
The species was, however, named after the Governor of Sumatra, General Baron van der Bosch (1780-1844), by the Dutch ornithologists Muller and Schlegel, in gratitude for his encouragement in 1833 of a natural history collecting expedition on the the island.
The plate by William Hart was reprinted in Gould's unfinished Monograph of the Pittidae. Only one volume with two parts and ten illustrations of pittas from various countries was published. The folder for the parts had a wood engraving after Hart of the Pitta Boschii on the cover.
The birds are depicted lifesize. The female is coloured like the male on the upper surface, but the undersurface has narrow lines of dark brown and dull yellow, the male has an undersurface of indigo-blue and red lines.
J. Gould, Monograph of the Pittidae, 1880-1881, pl.9
DISTRIBUTION: Southeastern Asia: Malayan peninsula, southern Thailand, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and Bali. The subspecies Pitta guajana irena illustrated here is restricted to the Malayan peninsula and Sumatra