240 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



on the east. Thence it is found through the whole of the hill country of 

 Burma, Chin Hills, and Shan States into southern Burma, where it meets 

 M. leptogrammica, its southern representative in the Malay Peninsula. 



Davison records it as very rare in Tenasserim. 



There are two races of this Dove, M. tusalia leptogrammica found, as 

 already mentioned, in the Malay States, and in Java and Sumatra, and 

 M. tusalia swinhoei, which occurs in Hainan. The former race, or subspecies, 

 which may possibly enter the extreme south of Tenasserim, is a smaller form 

 with its plumage generally more rufous and less glossy. The latter subspecies 

 is about the same size as our bird, but is darker in general tint. 



Nidification. I found this bird breeding in great numbers in North 

 Cachar, where I took many nests. The nest is typical of the Order, but is 

 perhaps rather more stoutly built than most : the twigs of which it is com- 

 posed are nearly always torn from the living tree, and are thus pliant and 

 easy to manipulate when first used, and therefore interwoven with one 

 another very compactly. Another curious feature is that the birds sometimes 

 use grass or, still less frequently, moss as a rough lining to the nest. This 

 lining I saw in several nests taken at Hungrum, a place some 6,000 ft. up in 

 the Barail Range in Cachar, but in the nests taken in the adjoining Elhasia 

 Hills, where it was equally common, I only saw about two nests with a lining 

 of this description. 



The greater number of nests found by myself and my collectors were 

 placed in small saplings, or in small stunted oak trees at any height between 

 six and sixteen feet from the ground, but a few were found on high, thick 

 bushes, and a good many on taller trees, thirty feet or more above it. 

 Mr. S. M. Robinson (I.e.), however, records finding a nest of this species 

 "placed on bracken leaves not far from the ground in dense bamboo 

 and undergrowth." 



The majority of birds lay but one egg ; but in a certain number of nests 

 two eggs will be found, and, strange to say, in North Cachar the single eggs 

 were generally of a different type to those taken in pairs. I remarked on 

 this long ago in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, where 

 I wrote of these two types : " The first (those laid in pairs) is a long oval 

 decidedly pointed at one end, though not much compressed, and the second 

 is the normal Doves' egg shape, only being of a rather longer oval than usual. 

 The colour ranges from a buff, so pale as to appear white unless contrasted 

 with real white, to a rather warm tint of cafe-au-lait. Curiously enough, too, 

 the first type of egg mentioned is almost invariably darker than the second." 

 The eggs, however, bleach and fade so quickly that in a year or two after they 

 are taken they are all much of a muchness in tint. 



Mr. B. B. Osmaston took a number of the Cuckoo-Dove's eggs round 

 about Darjiling, but in no case found more than a single egg in the nest, 

 though he, too, remarks on the two different types of egg laid. He gives the 

 average of his eggs as being : — 



" Large pointed ovals — average 1.44 in. X 1.00 in. 

 Small elUpsoid ovals — average 1.25 in. X 0.96 in." 



The average of 200 eggs measured by myself is 1.39 in. ( = 36.3 mm.) 

 by 1.0 in. ( = 25.4 mm.), and the extremes in length are 1.20 in. ( = 30.4 mm.) 

 and 1.52 in. ( = 38.1 mm.), and in breadth 0.87 in. ( = 19.8 mm.) by 1.09 in. 

 ( = 27.6 mm.). Their texture is very fine and close even for a Dove's egg, 

 and the surface often has a considerable gloss when the eggs are first laid 



