T44 Stray Notes of the Season. 



I should say that neither in plumage nor contour have i 

 been able to detect any difference in the sexes, and it is during" 

 courting displays that 1 know " t'other from which. 



I regret my brother was not available to take a photo of 

 the young bird in the nest, for, though it was not a rare 

 episode, it made a very pleasing picture indeed, the nest being 

 almost hidden in the convolvulus-like foliage. It was just to 

 the end of the path used during daily visits to replenish food 

 -upplies, situate three or four feet above one's head. 



The Indian Green-wing Doves {Chalcophaps indica) are 

 incubating. Though, perhaps, one of the species longest 

 known to aviculture it is one of the most beautiful of the 

 Columhidac. Its general colour is deep wine-red, with lustrous 

 wing of deep rich grass-green, which vary from copper to deep 

 blue-black under the play of light ; the beak and feet are red — 

 lovely creatures in a roomy garden aviary. I have kept the 

 species for many years and found them hardy and long-lived — 

 ten to twelve years being by no means an uncommon period. 



Though I have bred this species on several occasions, 

 and as recently as 1920, failures have been more numerous than 

 successes, not that they are bad sitters or parents, but rather 

 because of wasting their efforts in attempts to construct nests 

 on impossible natural sites, though numerous artificial platforms 

 were scattered about in sheltered positions all over the aviary — 

 their predilection evidently being for a naturally constructed 

 nest amid the branches of some tree or bush. Apparently, at 

 last they have constructed one to their liking, in a position where 

 ;iny human would have said a nest was impossible — the query 

 is. will the fragile, sticky platform they have constructed stand 

 the strain of storm, incubation and brooding of the young? 



The X'inaceous Turtle- Doves {Tiirtitr z'i)iaceus) are no 

 better, and so far have not got beyond trying to construct nests 

 .'i.mid the branches, which the alighting of other birds on one of 

 the branches invariably disperse. This was the case with this 

 ;\iir last season. 



Red Mountain Doves (Geotrygou moniana), are very 

 handsome and hardy doves, comfortably spending tiie whole 



