BEONZEWINGED PIGEONS. 



283; 



years' experience of tliis speuies in captivity. It strucli 

 jiie as, -without exception, the dullest and least interest- 

 ing Dove I ever had. Doubtless if I cuuld have ob- 

 tained a hen things would have been livelier. 



Although this bird has been bred in Germany. Dr. 

 ]{uss considers it a dilticult bird to rear, as the brood 

 is especially likely to be lost through misadventure. He, 

 however, liad a pair which nested on the floor behind 

 a large cage, and brought up the young. 



The London Zoological Society first purchased eight 

 si>ecimens of this Dove in 1855, and has had many 

 other.5 since that date. Writing in 1905. Miss Alderson 

 says: — "'I have never been sucrctsfnl in breeding thi? 

 Dove, though my hens liave laid eggs." 



T.VMBOURiNE Dove (Ti/mijaiiishia ti/mpanistria). 



The adult m;ile is brownish-grey above ; the fore- 

 head, eyebrow stripes, cheeks, and under surface pure 

 white; "the lores dark brown; two broad dark brown 

 belts across the rump, with a pale gieyish-brown 'belt 

 between them ; a similar indistinct band bordering the 

 se«>nd dark belt ; inner wing-ooverts and secondaries 

 .-^potted with very dark green or pm-ple ; primary- 

 coverts and primaries cinnamon, the outer webs and 

 tins dark brown : six central tail feathers deep reddish- 

 brown, the outer three on each side shading into grey 

 and having a blaek subtenninal belt ; under wing- 

 coverts and axillaries cinnamon ; lower flanks washed 

 with brown ; tail below brown, with indistinct subter- 

 minal belt ; the central feathers with pale brown tips, 

 the outer ones with grey tips ; feet dull crimson ; bill 

 dark purplish ; iris hazel to dark brown. 



The female has the forehead, cheeks, and under sur- 

 face somewhat greyisli, and the wing spots blackish 

 without metallic shading. 



I described the young at nine days old as follows 

 {T/ie Avicultuial Mai/azine, Second Series, Vol II., 

 p. 101) : — '■ The skin, where not feathered, is of an ash- 

 gi'ey colour, the crown of the head sparsely covered with 

 -straggling sandy-coloured hairs, the neck and sides of 

 breast below (lothed with half-developed whity-brown 

 downy feathers, those of the breast with broad, ill- 

 defined subterminal blackish transverse bands ; the 

 flanking leathers of the abdomen are also downy, but 

 pure white; all tlie feathers of the wings and tail are 

 of a bright coft'ee-brown colour, with broad sub-ter- 

 minal irregular transverse black bands ; tire bill is black, 

 with bone yellowish tip; the feet dark horn-brown, 

 becoming almost black on the toes ; the claws reddish- 

 horn colour." 



In 1906 {The Avkullural Magazine, Vol. IV.. p. 309) 

 I described the young at nineteen days of a.ge, thus: — 

 ■ Colouring of up[>er parts largely bronze-brown, but 

 the feathers b.arred with buff and black: flights reddish- 

 chestnut ; t.ail chiefly vinous brown, the outermu.'t 

 feathers white. Forehead and broad eyebrow streak 

 buff ; the feathers at sides of crown standing in curved 

 rows .so as to produce a sort of divided crest, buff- 

 brownish : ear-coverts and cheeks leaden-grey, the 

 former apparently narrowly ban-ed white and buff, but 

 this appearance is pnibably partly due to the slieaths 

 still remaining on the feathers at this part of the 

 head; sides of neck, throat and breast buffish-brown. 

 _ivith narrow blackish bars : abdomen white ; bill dull 

 "black ; feet dark leaden-grey, with a faint sub-tint of 

 flesh colour: the eye was too sunken to describe." 

 TTab.. South Africa generally; on the west coast north- 

 ward to Ca.samanca, and on the east to Monibas : alsj 

 ^ladagascar, the Comoro Islands, and Fernando Po. 



Messrs. .Stark and Sclater sav of this Dove ("Birds 



of South Africa," Vol. IV., pp. 179, 180) :—" The Tam- 

 bourine Dove is only met with in thickly wooded dis- 

 tricts, such as are 'usually found near ithe coast. It 

 derives its name from its note 'coo coo,' repeated slowly 

 at first and afterwards more quickly, till finally it ends 

 in a more or less prolonged rattle resembling that of a- 

 tambourine. Its note is often heard in the middle of 

 the day, when other birds are silent. According to 

 Ayres it is seen ;in pairs or singly, but not in com- 

 panies. It is very active and lively, of rapid flight,, 

 and feeds on the seeds of trees which have dropped on 

 the ground, the principal one being that of the castor 

 oil plant. 



•• The nest is built in a low tree, and consists of the- 

 usual rough platform of sticks, on which are laid two- 

 yellow ish-white eggs. 



"A clutch of two, taken by iMr. A. D. Millar, on> 

 Dec. 10, at Umgeni, near Durban, and presented by him. 

 to the South African Jhiseum, are oval, smooth, and 

 ivory-white, measuring .95 x .75." 



After 1883 this Dove was imported freely for a time, 

 and then again it disappeared irom the market. A pair 

 was brought home by Lieut. Horebough in 1899 and. 

 given to my friend 'Mr. James Housden, of Sydenham-, 

 on condition that if they bred I should have the first 

 pair of youngsters ; unluckily for me, they did not 

 breed, and so for a time I was without this charming: 

 species. However, Mr. T. L. Bonstow, noting in the 

 second part of my " Foreign Bird-Keeping " that I had 

 never possessed it, brought home a pair (together witli. 

 a female Emerald Dove) and gave them to me in. 

 August, 1902. 



Up to November, 1903, although many eggs were laid 

 by my hen Tyriipanisti-ia, wone were hatched either in. 

 the hird-Tooni or my larger garden aviary ; then one 

 young one was hatched in the bird-room and fed until 

 nine days old, when it« par-emts deserted it. 



After 1903 and up to 1906 no eggs were hatched by 

 these birds ; therefore, as I desired to give them every 

 opportunity, I again turned them out in the spring of 

 1906 into my lower though longer outdoor aviary, hav- 

 ing previous'lv moulded a sort of shallow basin of slen- 

 der branches'and twigs, at about 4 ft. from the cement 

 floor, in the thicket of dead branches which partly fills 

 the more remote covered part of the aviary. 



The birds were turned out on May 3 and eggs were 

 laid in the nesting site which I had prepared on June 

 6 and 8, the birds beginning to sit on the 8th, the cock 

 turning the hen off the nest and taking her place at 

 9.30 a?m. and the ben returning to the nest at about 

 2.45 p.m. 



On June 20 I found the first half-shell on the floor, 

 and on the foUcwing day the second half-shell was 

 brought out, there being just -a day between the hatchincr 

 of the two voung birds. T\\!\X' T jimpaiiislria sihouJd' 

 have hatched out on this occasion on the thirteenth 

 morning, whereas in the considerably cooler bird-room 

 the egg hatched in 1903 took foitr days longer to incu- 

 bate, was to me a matter of great interest. 



Of the two birds hatched, one fell out of the nest 

 and evidently injured it-self, as it died on July 9 ; the 

 other .:'a cock" bird) was succes.sf ully reared. The parents- 

 went to nest again, and reared two young ones until 

 they left the nest, when they neglected to feed themi, so 

 that both died. ' In 1907 they .again nested twice, 

 but only fed one of the four youngsters which left the- 

 nest; t^his proved to be a hen. In 1908 they nested 

 three times, but again behaved as before, so that one- 

 hen only was reared. In 1909 the weather was so un- 

 favourable that the first nest api^ears to have come to- 



