102 Mr. E. Blyth^s Drafts for a Fauna Indica, 



tals of pillars and whatever other convenient nooks they find. 

 Hence, when unmolested, these house pigeons soon become fa- 

 miUarized with man, and require little encouragement to merge 

 into the domestic condition. 



C. INTERMEDIA, Strickland, Ann. and Mag. N. H. 1844, p. 39: 

 C. anas of India, auctorum : C. cenas, var., from Tartary, Wagler. 

 [Jalalaya, H. ; Parwa, Mahr. ; Golah of the pigeon dealers.) 

 (Indian Kock Pigeon.) The common wild blue pigeon of 

 India is most closely allied to the European C. livia, but is of 

 rather a deeper slaty -gray, with invariably a deep ash-coloured 

 rump ; whereas C. livia has as constantly a pure white rump : 

 there appears to be no other distinction between them, unless it 

 be that the play of colours on the neck is finer in the Indian bird. 

 The same difference in the colour of the rump is observable in 

 the domestic pigeons of the two countries, whenever these tend 

 to assume the normal colouring ; for the tame Indian pigeons are 

 as clearly derived from the wild C. intermedia as those of Europe 

 are from C. livia. 



Colour slaty-gray, darker on the head, breast, upper and lower 

 tail-coverts and tail, which last has a blackish terminal band not 

 well-defined; nuchal feathers divergent at their tips, and brightly 

 glossed with changeable green and reddish-purple ; two black bars 

 on the wing* ; the primaries tinged with brownish, and the outer- 



* In some specimens, particularly among the semi-domestic, slight dusky 

 streaks occur on the shafts of the lesser wing-coverts, which, in the latter, 

 are often much more developed, spreading across the feathers and spotting 

 the whole wing ; such birds much resembling (except in the rump not being 

 white) a race of wild pigeons that are abundantly brought at times to the 

 London markets — all of them shot birds; but the latter have not, in addi- 

 tion, the two black bands on the wing well-defined, as seems to be regularly 

 the case with this variety of C. intermedia. Moreover, in the English bird, 

 the spotting of the lesser wing-coverts does not occur on the shafts of the 

 feathers, but partly margins each web, excepting near the edge of the wine, 

 where the feathers are unspotted. I suspect that the wild rock pigeons of 

 the south of England are mostly of the kind alluded to, which may be de- 

 signated Caffinis; while those of North Britain, and it would seem of 

 Europe generally, are true C. livia. 



Here, again, we have three closely-allied species, analogous to tlie three 

 yellow-footed Ilurrials, Treron viridifronsy I'v. phoenicojHeraf and Tr. clilo- 

 rigaster; and if they are to be regarded as mere varieties of the same, what 

 limits can be assigned to the further variation of wild species ? Col. leuco- 

 nota is but a step more removed, and I doubt not would equally merge and 

 blend with the others in a state of domesticity. Equally allied are — Treron 

 sphenura and TV. cantillans ; Tr. apicaiida and Tr. oxyura ; and if we grant 

 also some variation of size, we have 2r. hicincta and 'Tr. vernans; Tr. ma- 

 laharica and Tr. chloropfera ; Turtur chinensis and T. suratensis ; T. meena 

 and y. auritus, &c. &c., which might be regarded as local varieties of the 

 same, and we might thus go on reducing species ad infinitum with no useful 

 definite result, but to the utter confusion of all discriminative classification. 

 However closely races may resemble, if they present absolute and constant 



