216 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



these little Doves indulge in a family it is impossible to guess ; all have two 

 or three broods, and some of them probably have as many as five or six, for. 

 with strict attention to business, there is time for this each year. On an 

 average the nest may be said to take a week to build, the eggs a fortnight to 

 hatch, and the young ones a month to bring up and turn into the world to 

 fend for themselves, so that in a couple of months the parent birds are quite 

 ready to start their domestic cares once more. For the second brood 

 the old nest suffices, and in some instances even a third is brought up in 

 it after which, if the female is still intent on laying, she usually turns to 

 another site. 



As regards the site itself, tlie bird is not hard to please. Most nests are 

 placed in bushes, small saplings, tangles of cane, briers, or creeping plants ; 

 some rest on boughs open to all the world to inspect, and many are placed 

 somewhere or other inside human habitations. Nests on the tops of masonry 

 pillars of verandahs are common, others are placed on the walls or on beams 

 across the ceiling. Mr. A. Anderson had a pair build on the corner rope of 

 his tent whilst in camp ; the rolled up blinds — or " chics " as they are called 

 in India^ — used to keep the sun out of the verandaLs are favourite sites for 

 their nests, and I have even heard of one pair who buUt their nest in a 

 dining-room of a big house between a fiicture and the wall from which it was 

 hanging. 



The history of a pair of birds who built their nest on the top of one of 

 these " chics " is told by Dewar in his Birds of the Plains. This little pair 

 built their first nest, and reared two young, on the top of a " chic " whilst 

 it was rolled up, and when it was let do^\n in the hot weather they stuck to 

 the site and actually built another nest and hatched out three more broods 

 of young ones, and after this a pair of domestic Pigeons, whose eggs had 

 been substituted for a pair of their own. 



Perhaps more strange than any of the above nests are some which have 

 been found actually on the ground. The first record of this kind is that of 

 a nest found by Mr. B. Aitken " on the ground, at the top of a ditch, in a 

 plain covered with short grass, eitlier spear-grass, or some very fine sort like 

 spear-grass. Not a stick or straw had been carried to the spot, but the grass, 

 as it grew, had been worked into a very neat nest." 



More recently Mr. Fenton has recorded in the Bombay Natural History 

 Society's Journal, that he " found, some years ago at Chorwar in Khatiawar, 

 the nest of Turiur cambayensis (the Little Brown Dove) placed on the ground, 

 on a large bare plot surrounded by tlie ordinary Indian Cactus. The nest 

 contained two young birds." 



Considering the amount of vermin, winged and foiu' footed, wliich swarms 

 everywhere in India, it seems incredible that any birds could ever reach 

 maturity under such circumstances, for most ground-birds are adepts at 

 concealing their eggs, or these latter are adaptive in coloration. 



Needless to say, the eggs are always t;^o in number. It may be that 

 on rare occasions three are laid [vide Jerdon and others), and sometimes but 

 one is laid when the birds have already reared two or three broods. They 

 are white, smooth in texture, with a slight gloss, a stout shell for their size, 

 and in sliape they are a regular oval, both ends subequal in size and shape 

 and often somewhat lengthened. 



All the eggs I have seen come within the dimensions given by Gates in 

 Hume's Nests and Eggs, and their average is the same as his. The measure- 

 ments he gives are as follows : " In length the eggs vary from 0.88 to 1.18 in. 

 ( = 22.3 to 30.0 mm.) and in breadth from 0.75 to 0.90 in. ( = 19.0 to 



