INDIAN RED TURTLE-DOVE 231 
Surrma Valley is replaced by the Burmese form, though birds in the west 
of the former valley are intermediate. Birds from the Nepal Terai are inter- 
mediate, but nearer the Burmese than the Indian form, whilst those from 
east Nepal proper are true, or nearly true, humilis. 
It has once been found in Ceylon by Layard, who obtained it one year 
in some numbers in the dry portion of the north, where they were breeding 
in coconut gardens. 
Nidification. The Red Turtle-Dove breeds throughout the year over 
the greater portion of its habitat, but only from April to September in the 
hills, and after the rains break in those parts which are subject to the greatest 
droughts. 
The sites they select for their nests are generally at a little distance from 
human habitations, and often in thin forest, big groves, or similar places, 
but they occasionally build round about villages and in gardens and com- 
pounds. The sort of tree selected varies greatly in different places. Hume 
“ always found the nests at or near the extremities of the lower boughs of very 
large trees, at heights of from 8 to 15 ft. from the ground, and laid across 
any two or three convenient branchlets.” In Sind, Butler “‘ noticed nests 
innumerable on the babool trees below the camp.” Cripps once found a 
nest in a clump of bamboos near a cultivator’s house, and they have also 
been taken from bushes, especially thorny ones, palms, cacti, cane-brakes, 
and saplings. Barnes, however, adds yet other and more curious places. 
He writes : “‘I have taken nests both before and after the rains, but I think 
the majority of them breed just after the rains. I have always found the 
nests in small trees, well in the jungle—acacia trees for preference. The 
nest is very frail, and the eggs are usually visible from beneath. I have 
taken the eggs from old Crow’s nests, and once found a nest built in the 
foundation of a Tawny-Eagle’s nest, which had on the opposite side a nest 
of the Common Munia.” 
The nest is a very flimsy, roughly-built one, even for a Dove’s, and looks 
as if it would be blown away by the smallest gust of wind, yet it often 
stands severe storms and lives through bad weather long enough for the 
brood it contains to be hatched and reared. 
As a rule the nest is made of twigs, bents, and pieces of grass very roughly 
put together and without lining of any sort ; but Mr. C. R. 8. Pitman writes 
me that he found a nest ‘‘in the branch of a ‘ Bolass’ tree, about 12 ft. from 
the ground, with a lining of dead grass.” 
As a rule the eggs are two in number, but curious to relate this 
Dove appears not uncommonly to lay three eggs in a clutch. Hodgson 
says that in the Nepal Terai—this, as I have said above, is nearer the Burmese 
form—it lays two or three eggs. 
Colonel Butler found a nest on the 6th June at Deesa, containing three 
eggs, and writing of Sind says : “ On several occasions I have seen three eggs 
in a nest, and once or twice three young birds.” 
The eggs are said by nearly all writers to be more often than not an 
ivory-white rather than a pure white, a tint which is quite discernible when 
the eggs are placed alongside truly white eggs, such as those of the Wood- 
Pigeon, Rollers, ete. Many eggs, however, have not got this ivory tinge, 
and I cannot say that I remember this characteristic in the few eggs of the 
species taken by myself in Bengal. 
In texture they are smooth and slightly glossy, and perhaps rather finer 
in grain than most Doves’ eggs—much like the eggs, in fact, of Streptopelia 
