BLUE ROCK-PIGEON 131 



the wing varied from 8.3 in. to 9.7 in. The series in the British Museum, 

 a singularly poor one as regards typical birds, varies between 8.2 in. 

 ( = 208.2 mm.) and 9.05 in. (229.8 mm.). Weight 8 to 12 oz. 



Adult female. Similar to the male. 



Colours of soft farts. As in the male. 



Measurements. The female is a rather smaller bird than the male, with 

 a wing-measurement averaging about .3 ia. (7.6 mm.) less. It is also a good 

 deal more slender and lighter in weight. Weight 7 to 9^ oz. 



Young male. " Duller in coloration, and having the black bands on 

 the wing less clearly defined and with but little of the green gloss on the 

 neck " (Salvador!). 



Nestling, in the downy stage, is covered -nith a yellow, or pale yellow- 

 buff down. 



Distribution. " The Western Palaearctic region, \\dth Afghanistan, 

 Baluchistan, Sind, the Punjab, Kashmir, and occasionally other parts of 

 India " (Blanford). 



A careful examination of such data as we have on record, together with 

 the skins available in the British Museum and elsewhere, induce me to make 

 rather a drastic curtailment in the above definition of the area of the western 

 form of the Blue Rock-Pigeon in the East. 



In the collection in the British Museum, including Hume's collection, 

 there are but two specimens which could be held to be true livia : these are 

 two birds collected in Ladak, the one by Henderson on the 18th of October, 

 1890, and the second by Strachey on tlie 1st of January, 1880, and even in 

 these two birds the white band is narrower than is normal in western birds 

 and in one also it is slightly, though faintly, suffused ^nth grey. Nearest 

 to these is a tliird bird collected by Hume in Sind : in this the white is less 

 than an inch broad and as the collection contains eight birds from the same 

 locality, all typical intermedia, it looks as if tliis bird was individually aberrant 

 or a reversion to the original white-rumped stock of the West. Another 

 specimen labelled livia from Jhelam is really intermediate between livia and 

 intermedia and nearer the latter than the former. Cripps's specimen from 

 Furredpore is almost a typical livia though the normal bird of tliis district is 

 quite as typically true intermedia, and here again I look upon this as an 

 individual aberration or reversion. Specimens from Mesopotamia are inclined 

 to livia, and one such is almost a typical bird of that subspecies, though 

 others are quite typical intermedia. 



When we work through northern Africa, from Tunis eastwards to Egypt, 

 and thence tlirough Palestine, north Arabia and Persia, we find a form very 

 closely allied to intermedia, if not identical with it, which has been named 

 gymnocyclus by G. R. Gray, schimperi by Bonaparte (1854), and lately (1912) 

 palestinae by Graf Zedlitz, and before that (in 1874), neglecta by Hume, 

 and spelaea by Hutton (1873) (in a letter to Hume). Salvador! describes this 

 species, or subspecies {schimperi) as similar to C. livia, but lighter, and with 

 the rump light grey like the back, not white ; the area of habitat he gives as 

 Egypt> Nubia, and Palestine. Birds, however, from Tunis in the west and 

 Arabia in the east are identical, and these, again, I find it difficult to 

 separate from our north-west Indian livia intermedia. Throughout Europe 

 and north-west Asia and Asia Minor, all the specimens I have seen are 

 typical livia. 



From the material available, therefore, I think it would be difficult to 

 prove that typical C. livia livia ever comes within our Indian limits, except 



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