414 RASORES. COLUMBA. Turtle-Dove. 



Prestwick Car, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the autumn 

 of 1794, and describes one of them that was shot, which ap- 

 pears to have been a bird of that year, as it wanted the black 



Nest, &c. patch on the side of the neck. — The Turtle-Dove builds in 

 the closest woods, forming a shallow nest of small twigs, and 

 laying two eggs (as is the case with the whole of this genus), 

 of an oval shape, white, and almost half the size of those of 

 the Common Pigeon. 



It is found through all the temperate parts of Europe ; 

 but does not extend within the Arctic Circle. It is sedentary 

 in some few of the southern provinces, but in most of them 

 periodically migratory. 



Food. It feeds upon all sorts of grain and seeds. Its cooing notes 



are particularly plaintive, and are very frequently repeated 

 during the months of spring and summer. 



Plate 56. Fig. 2. Natural size. 

 General Head, neck, breast, and back, light wood-brown, tinged 

 t'on"^' ^^'^'-^^ pearl-grey. On each side of the neck is a patch 



of black feathers, margined with white. Scapulars and 

 wing-coverts black, passing into bluish-grey, and deep- 

 ly edged with buff orange, inclining to orpiment-orange. 

 Greater quills brownish-black ; secondaries bluish-grey. 

 Belly and under tail-coverts white. Two middle tail- 

 feathers clove-brown ; the rest with their tips white; as 

 is also the exterior web of the outermost feather. Irides 

 reddish-orange. The naked space behind the eyes and 

 ears pale purplish-red. 

 The wing-coverts of the female are not margined with so 

 bright a colour as those of the male bird ; and her head 

 is of a deeper wood-brown. 



