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On Breeding the Tambourine Dove.



of the aviary I could not tell. From the 8th to the nth I passed

an anxious time, fearing each morning that I should find it dead

and imagining that it became gradually weaker and more un¬

steady on its feet; on the nth however it looked so decidedly

stronger that I concluded that it had made up its mind to live;

it was still unable to fly, but moved tolerably rapidly even among

coarse grasses on a bank upon which it had mounted by means of

a sloping heap of sand ; when running upon more level ground

it greatly resembles a small duck and waddles much in the same

fashion, but when on perfectly smooth ground it runs more

evenly.


On the 12tli I saw the young bird fly six feet from the

bank, in the afternoon it seemed unable to walk and used its

wings to flap along the ground, when I went towards it however

it used both feet and wings to evade me. On the 13th the dove

was much stronger, and as I entered the aviary rose from the

ground and flew about twelve feet ; from this time there was

no relapse, and on the 17th I saw it with its parents at a seed-

pan placed on the floor for its convenience : I did not actually

see it eating, but the parents were not feeding it. Up to the

18th though active, it still remained much behind the dead

bushes : the feathering seemed to be perfect.


It would seem that, as compared with the Turtle-Doves

( Turtur ), the development of the nestling of Tympanistria is

remarkably slow; the presence of the loose downy hairs on the

head of the young when a fortnight old and the fact that when

nineteen days of age the feathers of the crown, wings and tail

had not half emerged from their sheaths, appears to me to be very

unusual, and it is positively disconcerting fora dove to be unable

to fly when three weeks old.


As there now seems every prospect of the second young

bird living, and this is the first instance, to my knowledge, in

which the Tambourine Dove has been bred to anything approach¬

ing maturity in captivity, I see no reason for holding back my

account.


As is well known the eggs of Tympanistria , though

perhaps a trifle larger than those of the Emerald Dove are of the

same creamy white colour.



