NOVITATBS ZOOLOQICAB XXIII. 1916. 81 



As far as the Pigeons are concerned, this was new for the Indian fauna. On the 

 whole, Mr. Baker's attempt has been very successful, but I cannot agree with all 

 his conclusions. He treated orientalis, agricola (under the name of meena,), and 

 meena (under the name of ferrago) as subspecies of Streptopelia turtur. It is 

 tempting to do this, but I do not believe that it can be accepted, because in wide 

 areas in Tarkestan and Afghanistan both S. turtur arenicola and S. orientalis meena 

 { = ferrago) appear to nest. Moreover it appears that the call-notes of the turtur 

 and orientalis groups differ considerably, the latter having a "cooing" call, the 

 former the well-known " turr-tnrrr." 



On the other hand I am certainly of opinion that S. cambayensis should be 

 looked upon as a subspecies of S. senegalensis. As everybody knows, cambayensis 

 has the upperside earthy brown, and senegalensis has it, to use the words of the key 

 on page 448, Cat. B. Brit, Mus. xxi., " more or less reddish." This " more or less " 

 shows already that it is not always so very red, and in fact females and young are 

 sometimes so little reddish that they come very close to cambayensis. The Cat. B. 

 adds also " rnnij> bluish-lead colour " in senegalensis, never bluish in cambayensis. 

 This, however, is not entirely correct, because some African subspecies of sene- 

 galensis do not have the rnmp bluish — i.e. aegyptiacus and the N.W. African form. 

 That cambayensis is not so frightfully different from typical senegalensis is suggested 

 by the following facts : 



As late as 1876, Dresser, in his immortal work The Birds of Europe, vol. vii., 

 united both forms, though in the Supplement, vol. ix., he separated them. But 

 even there he had not quite grasped their distinguishing features. On page 306 

 Mr. Dresser says : " Count Salvadori does not include T. senegalensis, but only 

 T. cambayensis, as found in Turkey ; but there is no doubt that both species 

 occur there, as I have a specimen obtained by Mr. Pearse at Turballi which, though 

 not quite adult, has the rump as blue as in typical senegalensis. I am, however, 

 afraid that I must blame myself for this omission on the part of Count Salvadori, 

 as I am not sure that he saw the specimen in question." 



The authorities of the Manchester Museum were kind enough to send me 

 the specimens from the Dresser Collection, for which I am much obliged to 

 Dr. Tattersall. I find that there is an adult female and two young, all shot on 

 May 15, and probably one family ! All three belong to the same race, and have not 

 much to do with cambayensis, but belong to the Algerian race of senegalensis ! 

 The young c? with more blue on the rump was called by Mr. Dresser Turtur 

 senegalensis, the female with a less bluish rump cambayensis, the adult female also 

 cambayensis. These specimens have, according to Mr. Dresser, been examined by 

 Count Salvadori, and called cambayensis, which is difficult to believe, as he knows 

 these birds perfectly well. I can only imagine that his notes became mixed, 

 because there is also enumerated on page 453, as from Aintab in Asia Minor, a 

 specimen (the first of the list) of cambayensis. This example was shot on 

 February 10, 1879, near Aintab, but it is a typical senegalensis and could not 

 possibly be mistaken for cambayensis, not even by a casual observer, and never 

 by an eminent ornithologist. That the mistakes became printed is unfortunate, as 

 the distribution as given in the Cat. B. and in Dresser's Manual was consequently 

 quite wrong. As late as 1886, however, Sharpe mistook a cambayensis from Muscat 

 (E. Arabia) for senegalensis, and the same error occurs in his Aves of the Second 

 Yarkand Mission. The distribution of the various races of Streptopelia senegalensis, 

 as far as I can work it out at present, is as follows : 



