240 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
on the east. Thence it is found through the whole of the hill country of 
Burma, Chin Hills, and Shan States into southern Burma, where it meets 
M. leptogrammica, its southern representative in the Malay Peninsula. 
Davison records it as very rare in Tenasserim. 
There are two races of this Dove, M. tusalia leptogrammica found, as 
already mentioned, in the Malay States, and in Java and Sumatra, and 
NM. tusalia swinhoei, which occurs in Hainan. The former race, or subspecies, 
which may possibly enter the extreme south of Tenasserim, is a smaller form 
with its plumage generally more rufous and less glossy. The latter subspecies 
is about the same size as our bird, but is darker in general tint. 
Nidification. I found this bird breeding in great numbers in North 
Cachar, where I took many nests. The nest is typical of the Order, but is 
perhaps rather more stoutly built than most: the twigs of which it is com- 
posed are nearly always torn from the living tree, and are thus pliant and 
easy to manipulate when first used, and therefore interwoven with one“ 
another very compactly. Another curious feature is that the birds sometimes 
use grass or, still less frequently, moss as a rough lining to the nest. This 
lining I saw in several nests taken at Hungrum, a place some 6,000 ft. up in 
the Barail Range in Cachar, but in the nests taken in the adjoining Khasia 
Hills, where it was equally common, I only saw about two nests with a lining 
of this description. 
The greater number of nests found by myself and my collectors were 
placed in small saplings, or in smal! stunted oak trees at any height between 
six and sixteen feet from the ground, but a few were found on high, thick 
bushes, and a good many on taller trees, thirty feet or more above it. 
Mr. S. M. Robinson (I.c.), however, records finding a nest of this species 
“‘ylaced on bracken leaves not far from the ground in dense bamboo 
and undergrowth.” 
The majority of birds lay but one egg; but in a certain number of nests 
two eggs will be found, and, strange to say, in North Cachar the single eggs 
were generally of a different type to those taken in pairs. I remarked on 
this long ago in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, where 
I wrote of these two types: “The first (those laid in pairs) is a long oval 
decidedly pointed at one end, though not much compressed, and the second 
is the normal Doves’ egg shape, only being of a rather longer oval than usual. 
The colour ranges from a buff, so pale as to appear white unless contrasted 
with real white, to a rather warm tint of café-au-lait. Curiously enough, too, 
the first type of egg mentioned is almost invariably darker than the second.” 
The eggs, however, bleach and fade so quickly that in a year or two after they 
are taken they are all much of a muchness in tint. 
Mr. B. B. Osmaston took a number of the Cuckoo-Dove’s eggs round 
about Darjiling, but in no case found more than a single egg in the nest, 
though he, too, remarks on the two different types of egg laid. He gives the 
average of his eggs as being :— 
‘* Large pointed ovals—average 1.44 in. x 1.00 in. 
Small ellipsoid ovals—average 1.25 in. x 0.96 in.” 
The average of 200 eggs measured by myself is 1.39 in. ( = 35.3 mm.) 
by 1.0 in. ( = 25.4 mm.), and the extremes in length are 1.20 in. ( = 30.4 mm.) 
and 1.52 in. (= 38.1 mm.), and in breadth 0.87 in. (= 19.8 mm.) by 1.09 in. 
( = 27.6mm.). Their texture is very fine and close even for a Dove’s egg, 
and the surface often has a considerable gloss when the eggs are first laid. 
