RUDDY QU ALL-DOVE 455 



Apparently a postjuvenal molt takes place in fall, which is prob- 

 ably complete, for first winter birds of both sexes are much like 

 the adult female. I have not seen enough material to trace the molts. 



Food,. — Gosse (1847) writes: 



It is often seen beneath a pimento picking up the fallen berries ; the physic 

 nut, also, and other oily seeds afford it sustenance. I once observed a pair 

 of these doves eating the large seeds of a mango that had been crushed. 

 With seeds, I have occasionally found small slugs, a species of Vaginulus, 

 common in damp places, in its gizzard. 



In the Short Cut of Paradise, where the sweet wood abounds, the partridge 

 is also numerous ; in March and April-, when these berries are ripe, their 

 stomachs are filled with them. Here, at the same season, their cooing re- 

 sounds, which is simply a very sad moan usually uttered on the ground, but 

 on one occasion we heard it from the limb of a cotton tree at Cave, on 

 which the bird was sitting with its head drawn in ; it was shot in the very 

 act. 



Doctor Wetmore (1927) says: 



During the orange season these doves feed mainly on the seeds of the wild 

 sweet oranges, secured from fruit that has fallen to the ground and has partly 

 decayed, enabling the birds to peck open the skins and reach the seeds at the 

 center. They do not touch this fruit except when on the ground, and can not 

 open oranges except when the skin is soft through decay, so that no injury in 

 orange groves may be charged to them. Near Manati they were eating the 

 fruits of the manchineel. 



Behavior. — Regarding the habits of the ruddy quail dove, Doctor 

 Wetmore writes : 



If the doves feel that they are liable to observation, they rest motionless, 

 and at such times it is almost impossible to detect them. If approached too 

 closely, they rise and dart into the dense growth. At other times they walk 

 rapidly to one side, with quickly nodding heads, and it is then that they may 

 be momentarily visible. Their flight begins with a loud fluttering of feathers, 

 but after a few feet they set their wings and sail away on noiseless pinions. 

 Occasionally they were seen on low limbs in the trees, perhaps six to ten 

 feet from the ground, but this was unusual. 



Voice. — The same writer says that during the nesting season the 

 males " give utterance to a low, resonant note of such character that 

 it seems always to come from a distance, though the singer may be 

 near at hand; this resolves itself into a deep coo-oo-oo, with a 

 peculiar undertone as of the humming of wind across the end of a 

 gun-barrel — a striking sound and one whose source is difficult to 

 locate." 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Northern South America, eastern Central America, and 

 the West Indies, accidental in Key West, Fla., and in western Mex- 

 ico; nonmigratory. 



The range of the ruddy quail dove extends north to Hidalgo 

 (Potrero) ; British Honduras (Orange Walk) ; Cuba (San Cristobal 



