INDIAN RED TURTLE-DOVE 231 



Surrma Valley is replaced by the Burmese form, though birds in the nest 

 of the former valley are intermediate. Birds from the Nepal Terai are inter- 

 mediate, but nearer the Burmese than the Indian form, whilst those from 

 east Nepal proper are true, or nearly true, humilis. 



It has once been found in Ceylon by Layard, who obtained it one year 

 in some numbers in the dry portion of the north, «here they were breeding 

 in coconut gardens. 



Nidification. The Red Turtle-Do ve breeds throughout the j^ear over 

 the greater portion of its habitat, but only from April to September in the 

 hills, and after the rains break in those parts which are subject to the greatest 

 drouglits. 



The sites they select for their nests are generally at a little distance from 

 human habitations, and often in tJiin forest, big groves, or similar places, 

 but they occasionally build round about villages and in gardens and com- 

 pounds. The sort of tree selected varies greatly in different places. Hume 

 " always found the nests at or near the extremities of the lower boughs of very 

 large trees, at heights of from 8 to 15 ft. from the ground, and laid across 

 any two or tliree convenient branchlets." In Sind, Butler " noticed nests 

 innumerable on the babool trees below the camp." Cripps once found a 

 nest in a clump of bamboos near a cultivator's house, and they have also 

 been taken from bushes, especially thorny ones, palms, cacti, cane-brakes, 

 and saplings. Barnes, however, adds yet other and more curious places. 

 He writes : " I have taken nests both before and after the rains, but I think 

 tlie majority of them breed just after the rains. I have always found the 

 nests in small trees, well in the jungle — acacia trees for preference. The 

 nest is very frail, and the eggs are usually visible from beneath. I have 

 taken the eggs from old Crow's nests, and once found a nest built in the 

 foundation of a Tawny-Eagle's nest, which had on the opposite side a nest 

 of the Common Munia." 



The nest is a very flimsy, roughly-built one, even for a Dove's, and looks 

 as if it would be blown away by the smallest gust of wind, yet it often 

 stands severe storms and lives through bad weather long enough for the 

 brood it contains to be hatched and reared. 



As a rule the nest is made of twigs, bents, and pieces of grass very roughly 

 put together and without lining of any sort ; but Mr. C. R. S. Pitman writes 

 me that he found a nest " in the branch of a ' Bolass ' tree, about 12 ft. from 

 the ground, with a lining of dead grass." 



As a rule the eggs are two in number, but curious to relate this 

 Dove appears not uncommonly to lay three eggs in a clutch. Hodgson 

 says that in the Nepal Terai — this, as I have said above, is nearer the Burmese 

 form — it lays tico or three eggs. 



Colonel Butler found a nest on the 6th June at Deesa, containing three 

 eggs, and writing of Sind says : " On several occasions I have seen three eggs 

 in a nest, and once or twice three young birds." 



The eggs are said by nearly all writers to be more often than not an 

 ivory-white rather than a pure white, a tint which is quite discernible when 

 the eggs are placed alongside truly white eggs, sucli as those of the Wood- 

 Pigeon, Rollers, etc. Many eggs, however, have not got tliis ivory tinge, 

 and I cannot say that I remember this characteristic in the few eggs of the 

 species taken by myself in Bengal. 



In texture they are smooth and slightly glossy, and perhaps rather finer 

 in grain than most Doves' eggs — much like the eggs, in fact, of Streptopelia 



