Mr. E. Blyth's Drafts for a Fauna Indica. 105 



which have at least thirty-six tail-feathers*, and races with an 

 occipital top-knot [Nuns), are common ; but I have seen nothing 

 like the variety commonly bred by Enghsh fancierSy and the races 

 generally are less pure (at least in Lower Bengal), with their pe- 

 culiarities not so strongly brought out ; unless in the instance of 

 the fantailsy and sometimes powters, which are as preposterous 

 caricatures of the wild race, as the most extravagant admirer of 

 Nature's freaks of the kind could reasonably desire, and as un- 

 deniably curious in showing what domestication can produce. 



C. LEUCONOTA, Vigors, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1831, p. 22; Gould's 

 Century, pi. 59. (Hooded Rock Pigeon.) Size and form of 

 last, the wings a trifle longer : cap, comprising the throat and 

 ear-coverts, ashy-black ; neck, rump (as in C. livia) and the en- 

 tire under-parts white, with a faint shade of ashy, except on the 

 rump, deepest on the lower tail-coverts ; interscapularies, scapu- 

 laries and wings light brownish-gray, purer pale ashy on the me- 

 dial coverts of the wings ; the primaries dull blackish towards 

 their tips, the secondaries broadly tipped with dusky, and the 

 tertiaries and their coverts having a subterminal dusky band and 

 broad grayish tips, producing a series of three short bars, suc- 

 cessively smaller to the front, and a trace of a small fourth band 

 anteriorly ; tail and its upper coverts ashy-black, the former ha- 

 ving a broad grayish -white bar, occupying the third quarter from 

 the base of its middle feathers, and narrowing and curving for- 

 ward to reach the tip of its outermost feathers. Bill black, legs 

 pinkish-red, and irides yellow. Common on the rocky heights 

 of the Himalaya, inhabiting near the snow line. 



According to Capt. Hutton, there are two races, if not species, 

 confounded under C. leuconota, viz. the true leuconota, as figured 

 by Gould, with the white of the hind-neck spreading a consider- 

 able way down the back, and which (he informs me) is found only 

 " far in the mountains f and another, of which the description 

 wholly corresponds with the Nepal and Darjeeling specimens 

 which have served for the above description, and which Captain 

 Hutton states "inhabits the Doon all the year, but is there 

 called ' Hill Pigeon,' while the other is known to collectors as the 

 ' Snow Pigeon.' The Doon bird flies in small flocks during sum- 

 mer from the hills to the Doon in the morning, and returns to 

 the hills in the evening." If there be really any difference, how- 

 ever, between the birds adverted to, I suspect it must be merely 

 one of age. 



Subgenus Palumbus, Kaup. Wood Pigeons or Cushats. 

 These have feet well adapted for perching, and a shorter tarse 

 than in the preceding section, which also is more, feathered 



♦ While drawing up this notice, I visited the bird bazaar, and counted 

 thirty-four feathers in a tail which was obviously imperfect. 

 Ann. ^ Maff, N, Hist. Vol.xix. 8 



