TURTLE-DOVE 187 
The male is, however, a rather heavier-built bird, though it has no greater 
average wing-measurement and is no longer in total length. 
Colours of soft parts are the same as in the male. 
Young male is generally, but by no means invariably, a good deal browner 
than the adult on the upper-parts ; the black patches at the base of the neck 
are absent, or only show as faint black bases to the feathers of that part ; 
the bold black centres are absent from the scapulars and much less developed 
on the wing-coverts and innermost secondaries. The lower-back, and often 
also the rump and upper tail-coverts, have narrow edges of rufous-white, 
these white bars sometimes extending to the scapulars; wing-coverts nar- 
rowly edged with pale rufous, and the quills more broadly margined and 
also tipped with rufous. The under-parts are more grey and less vinaceous, 
and in very young birds the breast-feathers are very narrowly and faintly 
edged with rufous. 
Colours of soft parts. Bill slaty-black, tipped paler on the lower mandible, 
and with the gape more strongly marked with purple. JIvis dull pale-brown, 
becoming reddish-brown after the first moult. 
Distribution. Within Indian limits the European Turtle-Dove is only 
a very rare straggler into the extreme north-west, and in the British Museum 
Collection I can find but one specimen, an adult female obtained by Lieutenant- 
Colonel Swinhoe in Quetta on the 7th May, 1881. The other specimens 
hitherto shown as of this subspecies are all undoubtedly arenicola. In the 
Hand-List of British Birds, by Hartert, Jourdain, Ticehurst, and Witherby, 
the range of this Dove is given as “‘ Europe from Scandinavia and north 
Russia to Mediterranean and westernmost Asia; in winter in north Africa, south 
to Abyssinia and Red Sea. Replaced by allied races in north Africa, Persia 
and probably other parts of western Asia.” I think, however, it is probable 
that typical turtur turtur extends a good deal further east than these writers 
give it credit for. The bird obtained by Colonel Swinhoe in Quetta is a quite 
typical European bird and can be matched by many birds shot in Great 
Britain, and I have seen other specimens killed in northern Persia and 
Afghanistan which cannot possibly be divided from it. Admitting that it 
breeds in “ westernmost Asia,” there is nothing very astounding in stragglers 
being obtained in the winter months as far south as north-west India. 
Nidification. There is, of course, nothing on record of this bird breeding 
within our limits. According to Seebohm (vide Hggs of British Birds, p. 159), 
«The nest is sometimes built in a tall, dense hedge, sometimes in an evergreen 
bush, or in the branches of a pine-tree ; as a rule, however, it is much nearer 
to the ground than that of the Ring-Dove, sometimes within easy reach of 
the hand. It is usually a slight, flat structure, made of slender twigs, but 
I have occasionally found it to be more substantially made. 
“The eggs are two in number, creamy-white in colour, like those of the 
Stock-Dove, and oval in form, both ends being almost equally pointed ; 
they vary in length from 1.25 to 1.1 in.. and in breadth from .94 to .86 in. 
The small size of the eggs of the Turtle-Dove prevents them being confused 
with those of any other British species of Pigeon.” 
Seebohm’s reference to the creamy tinge of these eggs presumably refers 
to those unblown, as the eggs otherwise are absolutely pure white. 
They breed principally in the end of April and May—Morris gives May 
as the chief month in which most eggs are laid—but I have myself taken 
eggs in the second week in April, and again late in June, this probably being 
a second brood. 
Morris states the period of incubation to be sixteen or seventeen days. 
