TURTLE-DOVE 187 



The male is, however, a rather heavier-built bird, tliough it has no greater 

 average \ving-measurement and is no longer in total length. 



Colours of soft parts are the same as in the male. 



Toung male is generally, but by no means invariably, a good deal browner 

 than the adult on the upper-parts ; the black patches at the base of the neck 

 are absent, or only show as faint black bases to the feathers of that part ; 

 the bold black centres are absent from the scapulars and much less developed 

 on the wing-coverts and innermost secondaries. The lower-back, and often 

 also the rump and upper tail-coverts, have narrow edges of rufous-wliite, 

 these white bars sometimes extending to the scapulars ; wing-coverts nar- 

 rowly edged with pale rufous, and the quills more broadly margined and 

 also tipped with rufous. The under-parts are more grey and less vinaceous, 

 and in very young birds the breast-feathers are very narrowly and faintly 

 edged with rufous. 



Colours of soft parts. Bill slaty-black, tipped paler on the lower mandible, 

 and witli the gape more strongly marked with pintle. Iris dull pale-bro'w n, 

 becoming reddish-brown after the first moult. 



Distribution. Within Indian limits the European Turtle-Dove is only 

 a very rare straggler into the extreme north-west, and in the British Museum 

 Collection I can find but one specimen, an adult female obtained by Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Swinhoe in Quetta on the 7th May, 1881. The other specimens 

 hitherto shown as of this subspecies are all undoubtedly arenicola. In the 

 Hand-List of British Birds, by Hartert, Jourdaui, Ticehurst, and Witherby, 

 the range of this Dove is given as " Europe from Scandinavia and north 

 Russia to Mediterranean and westernmost Asia ; in winter in north Africa, south 

 to Abyssinia and Red Sea. Replaced by allied races in north Africa, Persia 

 and probably other parts of western Asia." I think, however, it is probable 

 that typical turtur turtur extends a good deal fm-ther east than these writers 

 give it credit for. The bird obtained by Colonel S\\inlioe in Quetta is a quite 

 typical European bird and can be matched by many birds shot in Great 

 Britain, and I have seen other specimens killed in northern Persia and 

 Afghanistan which cannot possibly be divided from it. Admitting that it 

 breeds in " westernmost Asia," there is notliing very astounding in stragglers 

 being obtained in the winter months as far south as north-west India. 



Nidification. There is, of course, nothing on record of this bird breeding 

 within our limits. According to Seebohra (vide Eggs of British Birds, p. 159), 

 " The nest is sometimes built in a tall, dense hedge, sometimes in an evergreen 

 bush, or in the branches of a pine-tree ; as a rule, however, it is much nearer 

 to the ground than that of the Ring-Dove, sometimes within easy reach of 

 the hand. It is usually a slight, flat structure, made of slender twdgs, but 

 I have occasionally found it to be more substantially made. 



" The eggs are two in number, creamy-white in colour, like those of the 

 Stock -Dove, and oval in form, both ends being almost equally pointed ; 

 they vary in length from 1.25 to 1.1 in., and in breadth from .94 to .86 in. 

 The small size of the eggs of the Turtle-Dove prevents them being confused 

 with those of any other British species of Pigeon." 



Seebohm's reference to the creamy tinge of these eggs presumably refers 

 to those unblown, as the eggs otherwise are absolutely pure white. 



They breed principally in the end of April and May — Morris gives May 

 as the chief month in wliich most eggs are laid — but I have myself taken 

 eggs in the second week in April, and again late in June, this probably being 

 a second brood. 



Morris states the period of incubation to be sixteen or seventeen days. 



