THE PARTRIDGE (OR RED MOUNTAIN) DOVE. 



hen is very similar to the cocl-:; her forehead is 

 less white and her colour rather duller. I have 

 no notes on the wild life of this dove. 



LIFE IN CAPTIVITY. 



I have only once kept a pair of this rare little 

 dove. I bought them in March, 1904, for the very 

 moderate sum of 20/-. I found them very wild ; 

 they refused to let me come near them, and in 

 dashing about the hen grazed her head badly. I 

 did not find them very interesting; they were very 

 like the White-winged dove, but not so pretty, 

 being much the same colour and having the same 

 sk3'-b!ue skin round the eyes, though of course the 

 white band across the wings (which is such an 

 attractive point in the White-winged dove) was 

 absent. 



My birds did not nest whilst I had them, and 

 eventuallv one died, and I was left with the odd 

 bird. 



In 1S97 the late Mr. O. E. Cresswell received 

 an importation of 6 Wells' doves from Tobago. 

 He was much struck with the colour of the blue 

 skin round the eye, and describes them as follows : 

 "Their tints are soft and pretty — back olive- 

 brown, the back of the neck having a purple sheen, 

 under parts white shading into pink. I have not 

 found them interesting; after nine months they 

 are still shj', hardly ever utter a sound, and take 

 no notice of each other. I think I made a mistake 

 in not putting them out last summer." Dr. 

 Butler had a hen Wells' dove that laid between 

 three and four eggs ever}' month and sat by her- 

 self the full time on all eggs she did not break. 

 She died in 1906, having been laying and sitting on 

 clear eggs continuously since the beginning of the 

 previous year. 



A specimen of Wells' dove was presented to the 

 Zoo by Mr. S. Wells in 1886. Mr. J. C. Pool 

 received about five of these doves in 1898 from 

 Tobago. He considered them one of the most 

 timid doves he had ever met, and somewhat 

 irritable, running to drive any small birds away 

 that might perch on a branch near. 



THE PARTRIDGE (OR RED MOUNTAIN) 

 DOVE. 



(Geotrygon montana). 



Habitat. — Tropical America in general (includ- 

 ing West Indies), north to Cuba (accidentally at 

 Key West) and Eastern Mexico (Mirador), and 

 south to Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru. 



Length. — About 9 inches. Shape, rounded, with 

 rather short tail. 



Colouring. — The adult male has the upper parts 

 bright chestnut, more or less flushed with a purple 



iridescence, chiefly on neck and back. Breast 

 pale purplish-brown, softened to white on throat 

 and chin ; a band of deep chestnut runs forward 

 from the ear to the throat; under parts and tail 

 coverts buff white (Gosse). The hen is quite 

 different from the cock. The top of the head and 

 back is chocolate brown, with a slightly greenish 

 tinge, the tail is brown ; forehead and cheeks chest- 

 nut. The top and sides of the upper part of the 

 breast is also brown, but warmer and rather 

 lighter in shade than the back; the chin, lower 

 breast and sides buff. The beak basal half 

 crimson, the remainder horn-colour; the legs are 

 flesh-colour, the iris very pale yellow-brown, the 

 skin round it being the same colour as the beak, 

 namely, rich crimson. The hen is slightly smaller 

 than the cock. 



WILD LIFE. 



Gosse writes of the Red Mountain dove that it 

 prefers a well-wooded country where the woods 

 are filled with bushes as well as trees. He says : 

 "It is essentially a ground pigeon, walking in 

 couples or singly, seeking for seeds or gravel on 

 the earth." He noted that it fed on the fallen 

 berries of the pimento, the physic nut, and once 

 a pair of these doves were seen eating the large 

 seed of a mango that had been crushed. Small 

 slugs have also been found in its gizzard, and it 

 is \'er3- fond of the ripe berries of the sweet-wood. 



On two occasions Mr. Gosse made a close 

 inspection of nests of this dove. He says : "As 

 we crept cautiously towards the spot the male bird 

 flew from it. I was surprised at its rudeness ; it 

 was nothing but half-a-dozen decayed leaves laid 

 one on another, and on two or three dry twigs, 

 but from the sitting of the birds it had acquired 

 a slight hollowness, about as much as that of a 

 skimmer. It was placed on the top (slightly sunk 

 among the leaves) of a small bush, not more than 

 3 feet high, whose glossy foliage and small white 

 blossoms reminded me of a myrtle. There were 

 two young, recently hatched; callow and peculiarly 

 misshapen, they bore little resemblance to birds." 



In a second nest were two eggs of "a very pale 

 buff colour; sometimes, however, they are con- 

 siderably darker." The poor little cock was 

 sitting on this nest when he was shot dead. To 

 shoot this gentle little dove at all would seem cruel 

 sport, but to shoot a "sitting" bird seems to me 

 no sport at all, but wanton barbarity. In the days 

 when Gosse wrote, some 63 years ago, the bird 

 life in Jamaica was different from to-day. He 

 tells us of a boy who "caught 20 or more" of the 

 Partridge dove, "in springes during two or three 

 days in February." Mr. Sutcliffe, who has just 

 returned from Jamaica this year, says of the Part- 



