THE TURTLE-DOVE. 213 



Family COL UAIBIDsE. 



THE TURTLE-DOVE. 



Turtur communis, SELBY. 



THE Turtle-Dove is a summer migrant, common in the southern but rarer 

 in the northern counties of England. It is less frequently seen in Ireland 

 and Scotland. On the Continent it is generally distributed throughout the 

 temperate portions of Europe, and in the north of Africa within ten degrees of 

 the Equator. It seldom arrives in England before May, and, after nesting, departs 

 early in September. Stragglers occasionally occur in mid-winter; the Rev. H. A. 

 Macpherson identified a male Turtle-Dove, shot in Cumberland, on December 

 aist, 1894. 



Like many other birds, the Turtle-Dove is extending its range. Lord Lilford, 

 in his " Birds of Northamptonshire," states that it was entirely unknown in his 

 neighbourhood in his school days, but since then, has gradually become a regular 

 and sometimes abundant summer visitor to the district, and the country people 

 are now well acquainted with the " little brown Dove." 



It usually nests in willows or hawthorn bushes, at very various heights from 

 the ground, and lays two white eggs, like the rest of the family. These eggs are 

 very small in size and somewhat singular in shape, both ends being almost equally 

 pointed ; their small size, scarcely more than an inch in length, distinguishes them 

 from those of any other British species of Pigeon. 



The Turtle-Dove is readily distinguished from all other British Columbse by 

 its very much smaller size.* The length of the adult male is about eleven-and-a- 

 half inches, and the female is still smaller. Like the larger Wood-Pigeon it has 

 a light patch on each side of the neck, but the general colour of the bird may be 

 described as lavender and chestnut-brown. The centre tail feathers are brown, the 

 others slaty-grey, and broadly tipped with white, the outside pair being white on 

 the outer web. In the young the neck patches are entirely absent. The legs and 

 feet are crimson. 



A specimen of the Oriental^ Turtle-Dove, (Tnrtur orientalisj, was shot near Scarborough, on the 23rd 

 of October, 1889. It was exhibited before the Zoological Society by the late Mr. Seebohm, on behalf of Mr. 

 James Backhouse. This species is easily distinguished from the common Turtle-Dove by the band at the end 

 of the tail feathers, which is bluish-grey, instead of white 



