Mr. T. H. Newman,



196



resembles the Common Turtle is the voice. The note used, when

calling its mate to the nest, reminding one of T. turtur only

harsher ; at other times, when sitting quietly on a perch, the coo

is very like that of the Necklaced dove. It sometimes uses also

a short grating note which corresponds to the laughing note of

the Barbary.


In June 1903, a cock Necklaced x Barbary hybrid, hatched

in the beginning of the previous September, mated with a white

Barbary hen. The first nest contained unfertile eggs, but these

were laid in less than a week after pairing. Four more nests

produced six young, all of which have been reared and seem

strong. This speaks well for the care bestowed on them by their

mother; for the cock, after assisting very fairly with the first

pair of young, has since taken very little share in either sitting

or feeding; in fact, when the hen was thus engaged, he did his

best to persuade her to desert and lay again. I never saw him

on the eggs once, nor take any notice of the young during the

rearing of the second pair.


These six (J Necklaced x | Barbarj’’) doves show a good

deal of variation in colour. One, a hen, is very nearly as light

as a pure-bred Barbary, but the black collar is not so sharply

defined and is very narrow at the back : also, when examined

closely, the scapular feathers are seen to have a faint stripe down

their centres. The other five are considerably darker, some being

nearly as dark as the J-bred birds between T. tigrinus and T.

risorius. Their notes, however, are more Barbary like : but they

certainly favour the Necklaced dove more than the % Turtle x

£ Barbary does the Common Turtle. I have but little doubt

that these will breed, if suitably mated this coming season.


The prettiest Turtle dove hybrid however, that I have

seen, I think, is that between the Necklaced dove (T. tigrinus )

and the Senegal Turtle dove T. senegalensis'), of which I was

fortunate enough to become possessed of a fine pair during the

autumn of 1902. I11 some respects this hybrid seems to combine


the best points of both parents, though I do not think that on

the whole it equals the pure bred T. tigrinus , which has so many

charms of its own, that it can scarcely be improved. The chief



