196 1MIKHITANCE, FERTILITY, AND SEX IN PIGEONS. 



"Schwcnckfeld has described one of these mules under the name Turtur mixtus, pro- 

 duced from a male ( 'ommon Turtle and a female Collared turtle." These birds are seldom 

 reared except for the charm of their plumage, although the young are easily fattened and 

 their flesh is quite tender. 



"... Temminek makes a separate species of this bird (the White Turtle, C. veneris) 

 which he calls the White Blond Turtle 30 but other naturalists regard it only as a constant 

 variety or race of the preceding species; and this seems to us all the more probable, as the 

 otYspring which it produces with that species are always fertile, while those which it pro- 

 duced with the Wood Turtle are always mules. 



"I have given this charming variety the name, 'Dove of Venus', because it is usually 

 with these birds that painters and poets represent the mother of love. This Turtle is a 

 little smaller than the preceding. Its plumage is white; the collar is wanting, but it is indi- 

 cated on the back of the neck by feathers more rigid than the others, and of a little duller 

 white. This bird is more delicate than the preceding and requires greater care and especially 

 more heat. Its habits and manners are precisely the same. 



"It is easily mated with the Collared Turtle; but the young that are raised vary but 

 little in plumage. They are almost always exactly like the Collared Turtle, or the White 

 Turtle, and in the latter case they never have a black collar. This is a peculiarity which 

 never occurs in the pigeons, the young of which may take after the father and the mother, 

 while in the Turtles they are always wholly one or wholly the other, although we may find 

 in the same brood one white and one gray." (H 6) 



I find the pure white ring-dove (St. alba) is distinguished from the blond ring- 

 dove (St. risoria) in the following ways: (1) it is pure white; (2) it is smaller than 

 the blond ring and has a shorter tail; (3) the young are hatched quite naked, i.e., 

 they have almost no "down"; (4) the voice is quite distinct, though evidently of 



a Sob weookf eld. Avi. Sil. Therio-tropheum Silesia), etc., 1603. (Buffon, he. cil. p. 551, also cites this case). 



29 In the chapter devoted to the common turtle of Europe (Turtur turtur) Boitarcl and Corbie have the following 

 to say of the cross between it and the ring-dove: 



"It may be mated with the Collared Turtle and even with the White Turtle; but the offspring resulting are 

 sterile at least only such have hitherto been obtained. The hybrids mate among themselves, or with the Collared 

 Turtle, or with the Wood Turtle; they caress each other with the same ardor, lay and cover their eggs with the same 

 solicit iido. and yet these eggs never hatch without doubt the fault of the germ. This experiment, made by Manduyt, 

 by Vieillot, and with a sort of stubborn persistency by my collaborator, Mr. Corbie', has always had the same result." 



Manduyt relates his experience in crossing in the Encyclopedic Melhodique, 1784, p. 482. Speaking of the Com- 

 mon, or Wood Turtle, as he called it, he says: " It will breed equally well, whether crossed with the Collared Turtle, 

 as Schwenckl'eld has done, or with the White Turtle, as I have done; but so far from the trial which 1 have made 

 tending to prove that the hybrids arising from these crosses are fertile, they furnish no proof, but evidence to the 

 contrary. 



" Having inclosed a male wood Turtle and a White Turtle (Turtur alba) in the same aviary, the two birds soon 

 mated; the female laid, the egirs hatched, the young resembled the father more than the mother, the plumage of the 

 latter only having lightened up that of the male, without destroying the imprint of the half collar borne by the father 

 on each side of the neck. The hybrids were of a very agreeable shade of light grey (gris-blanc). There were several 

 sets of eggs from these birds, all developed successfully, and all the young were raised. They were partly males, 

 partly females, as was evident from the fact that some had much stronger voices than the rest. The positive proof 

 that some we're females was furnished by their laying eggs. I separated them, and made sure after sufficient time 

 that those which I regarded as males did not lay. I kept a male and a female inclosed for more than a year without 

 their having mated, and yet the female laid twice, two eggs each time, without making any nest, and without taking 

 any care of the eggs, which she allowed to escape wherever she happened to feel the need of getting rid of them. I 

 inclosed this same female with the male by which she was sired, and which was eager to mate. They passed a summer 

 together in the game aviary, the male kept up his addresses to the female unceasingly, but she never responded to 

 his desires, or to any of his caresses, but appeared absolutely indifferent to them: and yet she laid several times, as 

 when she was inclose,! \vith a male hybrid, and always without taking any care of her eggs, which I found several 

 times in the vessel which served to hold the drinking water for the pair kept in captivity. 



" I removed the (irst, female and gave to the same male another, likewise a hybrid; the result of the experiment, 

 was the same. These hybrids, then, were not fertile hili'r w. nor were the females fertile with the male parent : but 

 it would be nei'ess.iry to repeal the test upon a much larger number of individuals in order to be able to decide." 



MI error. Temminek gave this name to albinos of the blond turtle, and regarded the white turtle as a pure 

 breed or sp< 



