TITKTUK PULCHKATUS. 



(HODGSON'S TURTLE-DOVE.) 



Columba pulchrata, Hodgs. in Gray's Zool. Miscell. p. 85 (1831). 



Turtur orientalis (Lath.), Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 236 (1849, in part); Layard, 



Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, xiv. p. 62 ; Dresser, B. of Europe, pt. lv. & lvi. (1876, 



in part). 

 Turtur rupicola (Pall.), Jerdon, B. of Ind. iii. p. 476 (1864); Blyth, Ibis, 1867, p. 149; 



Holdsw. P.Z. S. 1872, p. 467; Adam, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 390; Brooks, ibid. 1875, 



p. 256. 

 Turtur pulchrata (Hodgs.), Hume, Nests and Eggs, iii. p. 500 (1875) ; Butler & Hume, 



Str. Feath. 1876, p. 3; Hume (List Ind. B.), ibid. 1879, p. 110. 

 1 Turtur meena (Sykes), Fairbank, Str. Feath. 1876, p. 262. 



Adult (Nilambe). Wing 7'3 inches (abraded at the tip) ; tail 5-3 (abraded) ; tarsus 2-0 ; middle toe 0-95 ; bill to 

 gape - 9. 



Iris orange (?) ; bill dusky slate, reddish at the base of the upper mandible ; legs purplish red. 



Head, back and sides of neck, and interscapulary feathers ashy, shading at the margins into dull rust-colour, which 

 is most prominent below the nape and almost absent on the forehead ; the interscapulary feathers slaty at the 

 centres ; back and rump ashy blue, pervaded on the upper tail-coverts with brownish, and the feathers there 

 paling into rufous-grey at the tips ; scapulars, lesser median, and inner greater wing-coverts black in the centre, 

 passing with a slaty hue into broad brick-red margins ; the outermost feathers of the lesser series, and nearly all 

 the greater covert feathers, ashy blue, those adjoining the red-edged feathers shaded on the inner webs with rust- 

 colour ; primaries and secondaries slaty brown, pale at the tips and on the edge of the longer quills ; winglet 

 and primary-coverts darker brown than the quills ; centre tail-feathers brownish ash, paling into grey at the tips, 

 and tinged there with rusty ; remaining feathers blackish, with broad slaty-white tips, the tip and outer edge of 

 the lateral feather pure white. 



Face and ear-coverts rusty ash-colour, passing on the throat and chest into rusty vinaceous, which pales gradually on 

 the breast into vinaceous grey, and becomes albescent on the abdomen and almost pure white on the lower tail- 

 coverts ; chin whitish ; flanks, axillaries, and under wing-coverts fine ashy blue. 



Obs. In view of the present confused state of the synonymy of the Indian and Asiatic Red-winged Turtle-Doves, 

 I adopt for our rare Ceylon visitant Hodgson's name of T.pulchratus, in doing which it seems to me that I cannot 

 well err, inasmuch as Hodgson's bird was a Nepal specimen, and must, in all probability, have had white under 

 tail-coverts. 



There are two forms of these Rufous-winged Doves in India : — the one with whitish under tail-coverts, or very pale 

 ashy, fading at the tips into whitish, which Jerdon and others call Turtur rupicolus, but which Mr. Hume 

 thinks is better entitled to the name T. pulchratus of Hodgson ; the other with uniform greyish-blue under tail- 

 coverts, which Mr. Hume considers is the bird described by Sykes as T. meena, and which is apparently the 

 same as the species (T. gelastes, Temm.) figured from Japan in Dresser's work, to accompany his article on Turtur 

 rupicolus, or (as he uses an older title still) T. orientalis, Lath. 



Latham unfortunately does not say what colour the under tail-coverts of his T. orientalis were. Mr. Dresser holds this 

 species, however, to be identical with T. gelastes, Temm., from Japan, which has slate-blue under tail-coverts. I have 

 seen the specimen he figures, and it closely resembles an example from Burrnah in the national collection which 

 Mr. Hume would, I think, refer to the bird described by Jerdon as T. meena, Sykes. Mr. Dresser writes me 

 that he found such variations in the colour of the under tail-coverts in the specimens he examined that he was 

 compelled to unite both forms under one title — T. orientalis, which appears to have been the first used. 



To this decision Mr. Hume takes exception, and holds that in India the two forms are distinct, having a different 

 distribution, the one being a resident form, while the other is migratory. He further remarks, in his valuable 

 disquisition on the vexed subject (B. of Tenass. pp. 420-422), that though the sedentary species, T. meena, Sykes, 

 undergoes, in its extension westward into a dry climate, a certain change (which is only to be expected), yet the 



