307



On Breeding the Tambourine Dove.



ON BREEDING THE TAMBOURINE DOVE.


Tympanistria tympanistria.


By Arthur G. Butler, Ph.D., &c.


As stated in the Avicultural Magazine for October 1903 (p.

397) my pair of Tambourine Doves, in company with a hen

Emerald Dove, were brought over from South Africa by Mr.

T. E. Bonstow and presented to me in August 1902. Whether

this Emerald Dove belongs to the sub-species— Chalcopelia chalco-

spila caffra , or is, as seems more probable, an unnamed form of

the species with larger and more emerald-coloured metallic spots

I do not know; it differs in a marked degree from Western

examples both in general outline and depth of colour, from C .

afra of course it is easily distinguished.


Up to November 1903, although many eggs were laid by

my hen Tympanistria , none were hatched either in the birdroom or

my larger garden aviary ; then one young one was hatched in

the birdroom and fed until nine days old when its parents

deserted it.


After 1903 and up to the present year no eggs have been

hatched by these birds; therefore, as I desired to give them every

opportunity, I again turned them out this spring into my lower

though longer outdoor aviary, having previously moulded a sort

of shallow basin of slender branches and twigs, at about four feet

from the cement floor, in the thicket of dead branches which

partly fills the more remote covered part of the aviary.


The birds were turned out 011 May 3rd and eggs were laid

in the nesting-site which I had prepared on June 6th and 8th,

the birds beginning to sit on the 8th, the cock turning the hen

off the nest and taking her place at 9.30 a.m. and the hen re¬

turning to the nest at about 2.45 p.m.


On June 20th I found the first half-shell on the floor, and

on the following day the second half-shell was brought out, there

being just a day between the hatching of the two young birds.

That Tympanistria should have hatched out on this occasion on

the thirteenth morning, whereas in the considerably cooler bird-

room the egg hatched in 1903 took four days longer to incubate

was to me a matter of great interest.



