THE COMMON DOVES OF INDIA 



THE dove family ought to have become 

 extinct ages ago, if all that orthodox 

 zoologists tell us about the fierce struggle 

 for existence be true. They form a 

 regular " Thirteen Society." They do everything they 

 should not do, they disobey every rule of animal 

 warfare, they fall asleep when sitting exposed on a 

 telegraph wire, they build nests in all manner of foolish 

 places, their nests are about as unsafe as a nursery 

 can possibly be, and they flatly decline to lay pro- 

 tectively coloured eggs — their white eggs are a standing 

 invitation to bird robbers to indulge, like the Cambridge 

 crew of 1906, in an egg diet; yet, in spite all of these 

 foolhardy acts, doves flourish like the green bay tree. 

 This is a fact of which I require an explanation before 

 I can accept all the doctrines of the Neo-Darwinian 

 school. 



There are so many species of dove in India that 

 when speaking of them one must perforce, unless one 

 be writing a great monograph, confine oneself to two 

 or three of the common species. I propose to-day to 

 talk about our three commonest Indian doves, that 

 is to say, the spotted dove {Turtur suratensis), the 

 Indian ring-dove {Turtur risorius), and the little brown 

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