52 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



INCA DOVE 



Scardafella inca (Lesson) 



A. O. U. Xumber ^21 



Other Name. — Scaled Dove. 



General Description. — Length. 8 inches. Color 

 above, grayish-brown ; below, grayish-red and buff. 

 Tail, as long or longer than wing, double rounded, with 

 12 feathers, all relatively narrow and tapering termi- 

 nally; wing, rather short and much rounded. 



Color. — General color of upper parts, grayish-brown 

 passing into pale ecru-drab on forehead, the wing- 

 coverts, paler grayish-brown, sometimes dull grayish- 

 white, especially on outer coverts; each feather of 

 crown, back of head, hindneck, back, shoulders, wing- 

 coverts, rump, and upper tail-coverts, rather broadly 

 margined terminally with sooty-black, producing a con- 

 spicuous barred or scaled effect: primary coverts, chest- 

 nut broadly margined terminally with black; primaries, 

 chestnut with terminal portion dark grayish-brown, 

 this increasing in extent on outer webs of outermost 

 quills ; outer secondaries, chestnut broadly edged and 

 tipped with dusky, the more inner ones mostly dusky, 

 with pale edgings ; middle pair of tail-feathers grayish- 

 brown, usually tipped with dusky; second pair, similar 

 but with tip more extensively dusky, the third with 



still more of dusky and. usually with white on terminal 

 portion ; remaining tail-feathers, dull black or dusky 

 passing into grayish-brown basally and broadly tipped 

 with white, the white increasing in extent toward the 

 outermost, on which it occupies approximately the 

 outer half of inner web and two-thirds, or more, of 

 outer web; sides of head and neck, foreneck, and chest, 

 pinkish pale ecru-drab to dull pale grayish-red, passing 

 into dull white on chin and upper throat and into very 

 pale buff on rear under parts, the feathers (except 

 on chin and throat, rarely foreneck also) margined ter- 

 minally with sooty-black, the bar thus formed broadest 

 on sides and flanks, narrowest (often very narrow, 

 sometimes obsolete) on chest and foreneck; bill, black- 

 ish; iris, dull orange to bright red; legs and feet pale 

 flesh color to carmine-pink. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest : In bushes, frequently close 

 to houses, a rather (for the genus) well-built platform 

 of twigs. Eggs : 2, white. 



Distribution. — Southern Texas, southern Arizona, 

 and Lower California and southward through Mexico, 

 Guatemala, and Honduras to Nicaragua. 



The little Inca Dove, like its mtich larger 

 White-winged relative, often seems very tame or 

 very stupid, for it is likely not to take wing 

 (where it has not been molested) until it is al- 

 most trodden upon. In fact, where it comes much 

 in contact with human beings, it becomes about 

 half-domesticated. This is especially the case 

 in farming country where the bird trots around 

 in barnyards or along the roads, busily picking 

 up grain or weed seeds, and uttering meanwhile 

 a hard and quite imdovelike note. 



The following is from Mr. W. L. Finley's 

 Arizona notes on the Inca Dove : " One cannot 

 live in Tucson for a day without making the ac- 

 quaintance of the little Inca Dove. This diminu- 

 tive member of the Dove family was formerly 

 a home dweller in the cactus and mesquite, but 



in later vears has taken on civilization and is 

 scarcely fotind outside the city limits. He likes 

 a tree that borders a city lawn, and he likes to 

 make love on a telephone wire, dropping down to 

 the dooryard for his dinner and making himself 

 at home with the chickens. 



" We heard the Inca before we saw him. We 

 did not have to listen ; we could not help hear- 

 ing him from dawn till dark. Of all wooing 

 birds, this Dove is the most constant. A pair of 

 lovers will sit on the telephone wire by the hour 

 and keep up a mournftil cooing, that to some 

 people is positively disconcerting. Rtit all the 

 world shotild love a lover. The song is really 

 more suggestive of a ftmeral procession than of 

 a wedding journey." (MS.) 



George Gladden. 



