78 NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXIII. 1916. 



NOTES ON PIGEONS. 



By ERNST HARTERT, Ph.D. 



IN 1910, when I had finished Volume I. of my work on the birds of the palae- 

 arctic fauna, an eminent ornithologist — now deceased — said to me that since 

 I had overcome the difficulties with Titmice, Warblers and others, and concluded 

 the Passeres, the end of my task would be near, and the second volume would be 

 more or less playwork. I replied at once that I could not agree with him, as I had 

 before me the Woodpeckers, Owls, Eagles, Geese, game birds, and other difficult 

 groups ; but I had hardly imagined that almost every larger family would be as 

 difficult as most of those of the Passeres. This, however, seems to be the case, 

 especially as many of the larger birds, being bulky and tiresome to skin, are 

 shunned by many collectors, and therefore very often the series in collections are 

 small and insufficient, and not to be compared with those of the smaller birds. 

 On the other hand the difficulties connected with their study mostly increase the 

 interest in those groups. 



Among others the Pigeons are by no means an easy order, and exceedingly 

 interesting. 



I. ON SOME TURTLE-DOVES. 



Among the Turtle-Doves — now Streptopelia, formerly Ttirtur — there is first 

 of all a difficulty about the name " risoria." Linne, Syst. Nat., Ed. x., i. p. 165 

 (1758), gave it to a bird of which he said: "Habitat in India, nobis communis 

 Turtur." On the strength of this " Habitat " the name has been frequently applied 

 to a wild Indian species, the Turtur douraca of the Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxi. p. 430. 

 Before Salvadori and most of his followers, Schlegel, Blyth, Stejneger, and a few 

 others had already, more or less with reasons fully stated, refused to adopt the 

 name risoria for the Indian Ring-Dove. 



Unfortunately my friend E. C. Stuart Baker, in his splendid book on the 

 Indian Pigeons and Doves (1913), p. 219, has again reverted to the name risoria 

 for the Indian Ring-Dove. In the Preface to his book, p. vii, the author most 

 laudably declares that he takes his names '' according to strict priority and with 

 effect from the date of the tenth edition of Linnaeus." On p. 219, however, he 

 quotes, " Columba risoria Linn., Syst. Nat., i. p. 285 (176(3) " ! He then says that 

 the authors quoted by Linnaeus give India as the country whence their Dove came — 

 mentioning also Brisson, who is not quoted in Ed. x., and whose work was not 

 published in 1758 — and winds up : " There cannot, therefore, be the slightest 

 donbt that Linuaeus meant the name risoria to be applied to the wild Dove 

 which had the headquarters of its habitat in India." 



Unfortunately Mr. Baker's conclusions are incorrect. Linne (1758) quoted 

 Aldrovandus, Willughby, Ray, and Albin, vol. iii., p. 42, pi. 45. Aldrovandus had 

 two figures, one (p. 509) of the European Streptopelia turtur, the other (p. 510) of 

 a "Ring-dove" which he calls a "Turtur Indiens." Of the latter he says in the 

 description (p. 508) that the female is white with the exception of the red feet and 

 blackish bill, while the male has the upperside rufescent. In the chapter on the 

 distribution Aldrovandus says that the Turtledove occurs in the Orient, in Africa 



