226 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



drawing, and great care has been taken, in this wonderful series of drawings 

 of the Birds of India, bound in six large folio volumes, collected by the late 

 Mr. B. M. Hodgson, to get the soft parts of his birds correctly coloured. 

 Gates, in his Handbook to the Birds of Burmdh, writes : ' Eyelids and skin 

 of face yellow ' ; Swinhoe writes, in Proceedings of the Zoological Society 

 for 1870, p. 446, on a bird from China, 'its eyelid is pale yellow.'" 



Distribution. Burma to the extreme south of Pegu, and extending 

 thence to the countries in the east and north-east into China. Whether it 

 is this bird which spreads through south central China and into Japan there 

 is at present nothing on record to show, but this seems very likely to be the 

 case. Harington only records it as occurring in the dry zone in Upper 

 Burma and the Chiudwin. It has, however, also been found in Arrakan, 

 Pegu, Yun-nan, Coehiu China, and the north-east Shan States. 



Nidification. Macdonald reports this bird as common all over the 

 M3angyan District, and breeding principally during the latter end of the 

 rainy season. 



I have had a fair series of its eggs sent me from Burma, and these cannot 

 be in any way distinguished from those of the Indian Ring-Dove. The 

 notes accompanying the eggs also show that the nest is, as one would have 

 expected, of precisely the same description, and the only thing necessary 

 to say about it is that it seems to be more often found in comparatively 

 thickly-wooded country or even in thin forest. 



In habits this bird takes in Burma exactly the same position 

 as the Indian Ring-Dove does in India. It haunts open spaces and 

 cultivation near villages, and also the more open but uninhabited up- 

 lands in the Chin HiUs and Shan States, though even here it would seem 

 to be more common round about villages than in the wilder parts. 



Oates merely says that it is found round about villages in cultivated 

 parts, either singly or in pairs, or else in small flocks. 



Harington says that it is a very common bird in the dry zone, 

 and that it is a larger and heavier bird than the Indian one. He 

 also remarks that its notes are deeper and that it has "as it flies 

 an almost hawk-like call quite different to its ordinary notes." 



It appears to be rather less intolerant of wet than is the Indian 

 bird and, probably because of this, to be found rather more frequently 

 in the better-forested parts of the country. 



In some notes sent to me. Major Harington says : '' It is very 

 partial to thorny scrub jungle, feeding in the fields morning and evening, 

 but I have never seen them actually in the villages. Like Turtur 

 tigrinus it is essentially a jungle bird. It is very fond of soaring, when 

 it utters a hawk-Hke cry." 



