16 COLUMBID^. 



Many of tlie birds on both sides of the Mediterranean 

 have a distinctly white rump, although even in the west, as 

 in Spain, there is a tendency in the white to become less pure 

 than in northern examples, and the band is often narrower. 

 Proceeding eastward, there is a gradual increase in the 

 number of birds which have less white in the rump, until 

 in the Jordan valley, according to Canon Tristram, only the 

 grey-rumped form, to which Bonaparte gave the name of 

 C schimperi, is found ; although in the mountains on either 

 side the true C. livla is abundant. In Egj^ot, Dr. Leith 

 Adams states that it is not easy to define the limits of 

 wild and domestic Pigeons, all the denizens of the dove- 

 cotes preserving the leading characteristics of the two black 

 bars on the wings and the single black bar on the tail, with 

 the white on the edges of the outer tail-feathers : most of the 

 domestic birds, however, had the grey rump of C. schimperi. 

 True C livia appears, however, to go as far as Mesopotamia, 

 and has also been obtained in Sindh and Cashmere, but in 

 Gilgit, Dr. Scully found both the white-rumped and the grey- 

 rumped forms ; even the latter, however, being always lighter 

 than the extreme form, C. intermedia, Strickland, which in- 

 habits Southern India and Ceylon, and which has the rump as 

 dark as, or darker than, the back. In Turkestan, Central Asia, 

 Tibet and China, is found a more distinct form, C. riipestris, 

 Pallas, which has a white subterminal band on the tail- 

 feathers. " There seems," says Darwin, "to be some rela- 

 tion between the croup being blue or white, and the 

 temperature of the country inhabited by both wild and 

 dovecot pigeons ; for nearly all the dovecot pigeons in the 

 northern parts of Europe have a white croup like that of the 

 wild European rock pigeon ; and nearly all" the dovecot 

 pigeons of India have a blue croup like that of the wild 

 C. intermedia of India." 



In Britain the Kock Pigeon sometimes begins breeding as 

 early as March : birds recently hatched having been noticed 

 on 2nd April,* and young, and even unhatched eggs, are 

 found in September ; so that at least two broods are reared 



* K. Gray, Birds of the West of Scotland, p. 222. 



