Indian Doves. 27 



is a legitimate question, and the answer, for obvious reasons, 

 i*? in the affirmative. The reason why only two eggs are laid 

 appears to be the peculiar manner of feeding" the young. 

 Doves go not into the highways and hedges to seek sustenance 

 for their offspring; they feed them on a secretion from the crop. 

 Pigeon's milk is not a myth. The pigeon family, which includes 

 tiie doves, really do feed their young on a kind of milk, and 

 apparently only sufficient of this is formed to feed adecpiately 

 two young birds. This explains the two eggs, but not how or 

 why they developed this strange habit. So far as I know% not 

 one of the gentlemen who never tire of proclaiming the all 

 sufficiency of natural selection to account or organic evolution 

 I'as attempted to explain the origin of this phenomenon. 



Anatomically there is no difference between a pigeon and 

 a dove. The larger members of the family of the columbidae 

 arc termed pigeons, and the smaller ones doves, but, even so, 

 there is no clear line drawm between the two. the smaller pigeons 

 aic no bigger than the larger doves. Doves fall into two 

 classes — the short-tailed and the long-tailed doves. Among the 

 former are numbered the four commonest doves of India, 

 namely, the Spotted, the Ring", the Tittle Brown, and the Red 

 Turtle Dove. Although a strong family likeness runs through 

 these, it is quite easy to distinguish between them at a glance. 

 The Spotted Dove (Turtur siiratcnsis) is about the size of a 

 m>na. The head is reddish grey, with what may be described 

 a? a black-and-white chess board on each side of the neck. The 

 wings are brown, heavily spotted with reddish brown. It is 

 from these spotted wings that the bird derives its popular name. 

 The legs are dull purple red. The call of this dove consists 

 01 four notes which may be rendered cuk-coo-coo-coo. 



VARIETIES OF DOVES. 

 The Ring Dove (T . risorius) may be distinguished at a 

 glance from the spotted species by its greyer colour and the 

 absence of spots on the wings. The head and neck are a delicate 

 grey, washed with lilac. Round the back of the neck runs a 

 black collar, narrowly margined above and below with white. 

 This bird is slightly larger than the spotted dove. Its note is 

 monotonous and trisyllabic, with a distinct hiatus between the 

 second and third note; it may be rendered coo-coo — coo. 



