100 Mr. E. Blyth's Drafts for a Fauna Indica, 



tinged with ferruginous; and the neck and under-parts are 

 browner than in the male. Irides dark ; bare skin around the 

 eyes deep purpUsh-carneous, as are also the legs ; and the beak 

 is bright coral-red, except towards the nostrils, where somewhat 

 dusky. Length 10^ inches by 17^-, and of wing 5^ inches 



This beautiful ground-dove is common in thick jungly situa- 

 tions, and especially among dense bamboos throughout the 

 country; and it is equally abundant in the Malayan Archipelago. 

 A writer before-cited remarks,- — " The rapidity of flight it ex- 

 hibits exceeds that of any bird I am acquainted with, except per- 

 haps the brief decisive swoop of some of the smaller Falconida : 

 as in the progress of the latter there is no apparent motion of 

 the wings, but gliding along a few feet from the ground, diver- 

 ging or rising just sufficiently to clear intervening obstacles, the 

 ground-dove skims with an arrow-like swiftness, and is come and 

 gone in an instant, scarcely giving the eye time to detect what 

 has crossed the field of vision. When settled on the ground, 

 however, it shows no unusual degree of fear, and may be ap- 

 proached near enough to notice its motions and brilliancy of co- 

 louring. Bare spots about the roots of large trees, particularly 

 of the tamarind, appear to be favourite resorts ; and a pair will 

 be occasionally found sunning themselves, arranging their plu- 

 mage and scraping up the earth, and beating up the dust with 

 expanded wings, after the manner of the Rasores upon an old 

 h'heetah — the artificially raised mound of a deserted village. They 

 soon become reconciled to confinement ; and the voice is plain- 

 tive and monotonous like an oft- repeated low tone on a distant 

 flute*." The nest of this species I have never seen, but am in- 

 formed that it is built in low thorny trees and often in bamboo 

 jungle : the eggs are two in number ; and one taken from the 

 oviduct (April 30th) measures just an inch long by three-quarters 

 of an inch across, and is of a less pure white than those of ordi- 

 nary pigeons and doves f. 



There is a nearly allied species in Australia, the Col. chryso- 

 cA/or«, Wagler, which Mr. G. R. Gray conceives to be the true Col. 

 javanica of Gmelin. One character by which it may always be 

 readily distinguished, is the total absence of white on the fore- 



* " ColumhidcB of the Eastern Districts." — Bengal Sporting Review, 

 No. 4, 1845. 



f Chalcophaps indicus is common in the deep forests, always in the vici- 

 nity of streams, and generally upon the ground in the shelter of beds of 

 reeds and rank grass. When flushed it takes a short hut exceedingly rapid 

 flight, alighting as abruptly with a sudden plunge into the herbage, so that 

 it is a most difficult bird to shoot. Its favourite food consists of the seeds 

 of the castor-oil plant. — T. 



