SPOTTED DOVE 205 
pale fulvous-brown instead of vinous, and the breast-feathers are fringed 
with narrow edges of pale fulvous. 
Colours of soft parts. Same as in the male, but the irides are pale brown 
and the feet a paler duller red. 
Young, after the first moult, acquire a certain amount of vinous tinge 
on the breast and flanks, and have the neck-patch represented by a few 
feathers with black bases which show through; the scapulars and outer 
lesser wing-coverts become streaked with dark brown and occasionally the 
vinous spots begin to appear. 
The Ceylon bird, as may be seen from the measurements given above, 
is very much smaller than the northern bird and somewhat smaller even 
than the southern Indian one, but I can trace no difference between the 
two forms in plumage. 
If divided from the northern form on account of the smaller measure- 
ments the Ceylon form would bear the name Streptopelia suratensis ceylon- 
ensis (Rchnb., Syn. Av., Columbariae, Novit., t. 2538 (1851).) 
Birds from Cachar Plains and Sylhet are intermediate between the 
Indian Spotted Dove and the Burmese form, whilst those from the North 
Cachar Hills and Manipur are almost typical tigrina. Birds from Gilgit 
are very pale in their plumage both above and below. 
Distribution. There is little to add to Blanford’s summary of this 
bird’s habitat. He says that it is found “throughout the whole of India 
and Ceylon; most common in well-wooded countries, rare in drier regions, 
and wanting in desert tracks. This Dove is found throughout the Himalayas 
up to 7,000 ft. and in Gilgit and Ladak. (The statement in the British 
Museum Catalogue that it inhabits Yarkand is a mistake). To the east- 
ward it is found in Assam, Cachar, and Manipur, but is replaced in Burma 
by T. tigrinus.”’ 
Throughout Assam Dr. H. N. Coltart and myself found only swratensis, 
and never came across tigrina, yet in North Cachar I found this latter 
to be the common form, whilst some birds sent me from Manipur 
were intermediate but leaning more to the Burmese than the Indian 
form. In Chittagong and the Chittagong hill-tracks also the former is the 
one met with. 
Captain Malden reported it as “ pretty common in the south of Sind,” 
but it probably only enters this part of India in exceptionally wet seasons 
as no one else seems to have noticed it there. Both “Kha” and Dewar 
state that this Dove is never found on the island of Bombay though both 
the Little Brown Dove and Ring-Dove swarm. 
Nidification. The Spotted Dove breeds from the level of the plains 
up to at least 8,000 ft. in the Himalayas and possibly even at higher elevations 
than this. In the plains it breeds practically all the year round, and in the 
higher portions of its hill-range from March to September. In Bengal 
undoubtedly March to June and, again, September and October, are the 
principal breeding-months, but Cripps found them breeding in Furredpore 
from November to May also. I think, however, that during the height 
of the rainy season most birds stop breeding, though I once found a Spotted 
Dove seated on her very exposed nest in August, during unusually heavy 
rain which had soaked her, the nest, and all its surroundings through and 
through. In Kumaon, Thompson found them breeding from February to 
October ; in the Konkan, Vidal got nests from October to April, and Cardew 
says that it nests in the Neilgherries from February to September. 
