200 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



Young birds differ from the adult in the same way that the young of 

 orientalis differ from the full-grown birds. 



Distribution. Western Central Asia, Turkestan, Persia, Afghanistan 

 and the Himalayas as far east as Sikhim, migrating in the cold \\'eatlier 

 over practically the whole continent of India and Ceylon. 



It is not very uncommon in the Deccan and occurs as a straggler into 

 Gujerat, near Sambhur, but does not appear to be ever found in Sind. To 

 the south, Hume gives about lat. 15° as its usual limit ; Davidson obtained it 

 in western Khandesh, and Davison in Mysore, and it probably occurs prac- 

 tically over the whole of southern as well as northern India, for it has twice 

 been recorded from Ceylon. So far, however, it seems to have escaped 

 observation in the Nilgherries, Palnis, Shevaroys, and many other places in 

 southern India where it must occur occasionally. North of the Madras 

 Presidency it is very common in the cold weather, and is numerous through- 

 out Orissa, west Bengal, and thence less common in east Bengal and Assam, 

 but not in the extreme east of the latter province. I have not met with 

 it in Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, or Tezpur, but it is said to occur in Goalpara, 

 and is certainly an occasional straggler into Dhubri. 



Nidifi cation. Hume thus sums up the breeding -range of this bird : 

 " Our Indian Turtle-Dove breeds tliroughout tlie lower ranges of the 

 Himalayas, from y\fghanistan to Sikliim at any rate, at elevations of 

 from 4,000 to 8,000 ft. It is for the most part only a summer visitant to 

 these hills. 



" Turtur pulchrala" (=ferrago) "lays throughout the summer. I 

 have found eggs early in May and late in August, but the majority lay in 

 June. It makes a loose, but rather more substantial, twig nest than many 

 of its congeners, placed on some horizontal branch of a large tree, usually 

 not far from the extremity." 



In and about Murree, Mussoorie, and Kashmir it breeds in great 

 numbers, and its nests and eggs have been taken by many collectors. It 

 appears to build at all heights, as Hutton says " that it makes its nest on 

 tall forest trees," wliilst Captain Cock recorded it as building " on trees and 

 bushes at no great height from the ground in May and June." 



Normally this bird is a resident of the hills and the liills alone during 

 the breeding -season, but in 1901 Inglis found it breeding in the plains of 

 Behar, and in the Bombay Natural History Journal thus records his find : 

 " This year I was successful in securing this bird's eggs for the first time. 

 I shot a male in March, whicli was evidently breeding, and so had a good 

 look-out kept wherever any of these birds frequented ; it was not, however, 

 until the 25th of May that the first nest was secured at Jainagar ; it contained 

 a single egg. On the 20th June, near Baghownie, a second nest was found 

 containing two eggs. Botli nests were on mango trees." 



This is an extraordinary extension of this Dove's breeding-range, and 

 looks as if the subspecies ferrago was gradually also becoming a non- 

 migratory bird, in which case we should eventually have those settling in 

 the plains merging into meena and those settling in the hills reverting to 

 orientalis, or differentiating themselves yet again. 



A very curious instance of this bird's nesting, or rather non-nesting, 

 has been observed by Mr. C. S. R. Pitman, ^^•ho writes to me that ho " took 

 a fresh egg at Nathea Gali, on 10/5/12, but the bird had not troubled to make 

 a nest, the egg being laid on some dry earth which had accumulated in an 

 open hollow in the side of a trunk of a large tree. Altitude about 8,500 ft." 



