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Mr. T. H. Newman,



the Birds of India, bound in six large folio volumes, collected by

the late Mr. B. H. Hodgson, to get the soft parts of the birds

correctly coloured, as in addition to the birds themselves, there

are numerous coloured sketches of bills, feet, tongues etc. I am

not putting forward this yellow skin as something that has not

been noticed before, as Oates in his “ Handbook to the Birds of

British Burmah ” writes :—“ eyelids and skin of face yellow,”

which exactly corresponds with my late lamented friend at the

Gardens and shows that this had nothing to do with captivity :

but no one so far seems to have called attention to the fact that

the Burmese bird differs from the Indian, etc. If the Yarkand

and Indian birds are worthy of being separated, how much more

should the Burmese bird with its very distinct feature deserve a

name? Not having a specimen to produce I hesitated to bestow

one, but on the suggestion of my friend Mr. Frank Finn, to whom

I have all along been indebted for having my attention called to

this interesting bird I put forward the name xanthocyclus for this

form which would stand as :—


Turtur decaocta xanthocyclus, n. subsp.


Burmese Collared Turtle Dove.


In general appearance like T. decaocta decaocta, but easily dis¬

tinguished by broad yellow bare rings round the eyes. Typical

localities, Minbu and Mague districts of Upper Burma.


I do not for a moment think the bird will be found worthy

of specific rank, as this case is exactly paralleled by the six

Turtle-doves received lately at Regent’s Park, which are called

Bocage’s Red-eyed Doves, but why red-eyed? You will look in

vain for it in these birds, but I have two, which also belong to

the same species (Turtur decipiens ), but to another form, which

have most conspicuous red skin round their eyes.


The Collared Turtle-dove seems to be far from common in

Burma, which would account for few specimens apparently being

available from this district, and this feature of yellow skin would

almost disappear in the dry skin. Hume who examined a skin

from Upper Pegu, thought the bird did not differ from Indian

examples, but Anderson in his ‘ Report on two Expeditions to

Western Yunnan,’ writes of a specimen from the Upper defile,

Irawady, about 40 miles below Bhamo, and some 250 miles above



