220 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
suffused with ashy-grey; succeeding pair of feathers more grey and with 
narrow white tips, the outermost pair black at the base and white on the 
terminal half and edge of outer web, intermediate feathers grading from 
one to the other. Outer wing-coverts pale grey, gradually changing into the 
colour of the back; primaries dark brown edged pale whitish-brown, 
secondaries more grey, finely edged with whitish. Breast lilac like the head, 
gradually changing to pale dove-grey on the abdomen and to darker french- 
grey on the under tail-coverts; flanks, axillaries and under wing-coverts 
pale silver-grey ; under aspect of primaries light brown and of secondaries 
greyish-white. 
Measurements. Total length about 13 in. (= 330 mm.); wing 6.25 in. 
to 7.10 in. (= 158.7 to 180.3 mm.) and averaging 6.65 in. ( = 168.8 mm.) 
in Indian birds ; bill at front about .7 in. (= 17.8 mm.) and from gape nearly 
1 in. ( = 25.0 mm.); tarsus about 1 in. ( = 25.4), and tail varying from 4.6 in. 
( = 116.8 mm.) to 5.5 in. (= 140.0 mm.). 
Colours of soft parts. Trides lake-red, red, or crimson ; bill almost black ; 
edge of eyelid red, and narrow orbital skin round eye white, pale livid, or pale 
slaty-grey, never yellow; legs dark pinkish-red, crimson-red, or dull purple, 
the claws almost black. 
Female. Similar to the male. 
Measurements. From the series I have examined it is impossible to 
determine that the female is any smaller than the male, but aviculturists 
claim that the female is distinctly the lighter build of the two sexes and 
easily recognizable. 
Young are browner and less vinaceous below; the wing-coverts are 
edged with pale sandy-brown, and there are narrow dark bars on the breast. 
Nestling, in down. A dirty pale yellowish-white. 
Birds from China would seem to run very large, a male in the British 
Museum series having a wing of no less than 7.40 in. (= 188 mm.) ; a female, 
however, from the same place has one of only 6.75 in. ( = 171.4 mm.), a size 
exceeded by several unsexed Indian birds. Again, a female from Japan 
has a wing of only 6.30 in. (= 160 mm.), which is practically the same in 
size as that of our smallest Indian specimen. 
The colour does not seem to vary geographically, though bleached birds 
are, of course, much paler than those in freshly-moulted plumage. 
As regards the name which the Indian Turtle-Dove must bear, there 
has been a great deal of discussion and many opinions given. In 1903 Dresser, 
referring to the synonymy of certain Palaearctic birds, attempted to show that 
neither the name dowraca of Hodgson nor risoria of Linnaeus could be used 
for this bird—risoria presumably on the strength of the oft-repeated assertion 
that Linnaeus only intended this name to apply to the domestic bird, and 
douraca because that name is a later one than decaocta of Frivaldsky, who 
gave the Balkan bird this name in 1838. 
An examination of Linnaeus, however, shows that the bird he calls 
risoria is that which Aldrovandus named Turtur indicus in 1637. On p. 510 
of Vol. 15 of the Works of Aldrovandi there is an excellent plate of the Turtle- 
Dove, and on pp. 511 e¢ seq. there is the usual full account of habitat, habits, 
etc. etc. Here Aldrovandus gives India as the country from which it comes, 
adding many other places, and amongst other items observing that it is 
most common amongst the Tartars. 
Further Linnaeus quotes Albin and Brisson, both of whom give India 
