THE COMMON DOVES OF INDIA 



f~ ~"^HE dove family ought to have become 

 extinct ages ago, if all that orthodox 

 zoologists tell us about the fierce struggle 

 for existence be true. They form a 

 regular " Thirteen Society." They do everything they 

 should not do, they disobey every rule of animal 

 warfare, they fall asleep when sitting exposed on a 

 telegraph wire, they build nests in all manner of foolish 

 places, their nests are about as unsafe as a nursery 

 can possibly be, and they flatly decline to lay pro- 

 tectively coloured eggs their white eggs are a standing 

 invitation to bird robbers to indulge, like the Cambridge 

 crew of 1906, in an egg diet; yet, in spite all of these 

 foolhardy acts, doves flourish like the green bay tree. 

 This is a fact of which I require an explanation before 

 I can accept all the doctrines of the Neo-Darwinian 

 school. 



There are so many species of dove in India that 

 when speaking of them one must perforce, unless one 

 be writing a great monograph, confine oneself to two 

 or three of the common species. I propose to-day to 

 talk about our three commonest Indian doves, that 

 is to say, the spotted dove (Turtur suratensis), the 

 Indian ring-dove (Turtur risorius), and the little brown 



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