THE BIRDS OF HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 201 



during the breeding season, may be written coo-oo-oh, coo-oo-oh 

 uttered almost as one syllable, with a rising inflection. Given con- 

 stantly through the heat of the day it may become highly monotonous 

 to the human ear. The birds though small are hunted to some extent 

 as game. 



Cory reports ground doves nesting in May, while near La Vega 

 Christy found eggs and young toward the end of June. The eggs 

 are white with a distinct gloss, and number two to a set. Abbott 

 collected a set of two near Sosua, July 22, 1919 from a nest of 

 grasses placed on the ground beneath a tussock of grass. These 

 measure 21.3 by 16.2 and 21.3 by 16.8 mm. He forwarded one egg 

 from Tortue Island, Haiti, taken on May 14, 1917, which measures 

 22.5 by 17.0 mm. Christy also describes nests found on the ground, 

 a habit that will be inimical to the species as the mongoose increases, 

 but that may perhaps be overcome as in Porto Rico where a closely 

 related subspecies of ground dove now nests in trees. 



Danforth and Emlen report the flight of one of these doves, timed 

 by the speedometer of their automobile, at thirty-four miles an hour. 



Following are measurements for comparative examination : 



Twenty-three males from Hispaniola (including Tortue, Gonave 

 and Saona Islands), wing 80.0-87.0 (83.6), tail 51.8-61.1 (54.6), cul- 

 men 9.7-11.8 (10.9), tarsus 14.9-17.2 (16.0) mm. 



Six females from Hispaniola (including Tortue and Gonave Is- 

 lands), wing 81.5-83.5 (82.3), tail 51.2-56.4 (54.3), culmen 10.3-11.6 

 (11.0), tarsus 14.4-16.9 (15.7) mm. 



Hartlaub 74 gives " Chamaepelia hortulana, Herz. v. Wurttemb. 

 Von den Creolen Haitis Ortolan genannt ; grosser als passerina; eine 

 allerliebste kleine Taube, welche eine sehr gute speise abgibt und von 

 alien mir bekannten arten abweicht." Though probably referring 

 to the ground-dove because of the generic name used this is not 

 certain since the only descriptive phrase that saves this from being 

 a nomen nudum " grosser als passerina " does not hold true. Hart- 

 laub's species, therefore, is considered not certainly identifiable so 

 that the name is not accepted. Todd T5 writes that Hellmayr has 

 not been able to locate Hartlaub's type. The name insularis based 

 on a bird from Grand Cayman is used for this race. 



The ground dove of Hispaniola is similar to that of Cuba and the 

 Cayman Islands. Though there is variation in depth of color this 

 is individual and not correlated with geographic range. J. L. Peters 

 has kindly compared the series in the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology for us and informs us that birds from Cuba and Hispaniola 

 in that collection are identical as they are in ours. A small series 



71 Xaumannia, 1852, pt. 2, p. 56. 



75 Ann. Carnegie Mus., vol. 8, 1912, p. 561. 



