DWARF OR RUDDY TURTLE. 53 
Length.—About 9 inches. 
beautifully proportioned. 
Colouring.—The adult male is vinous or brick- 
red; the back, rump, upper tail coverts, under wing 
coverts, and flanks grey. The head is a very 
lovely shade of pale ash grey, a rich black collar 
round the hinder part of the neck dividing the grey 
from the red. The long wing quills are blackish, 
the eye dark brown, the bill black, the legs and 
feet purplish red. The hen is quite different to the 
male bird. Her general colour is soft dun, the 
lower parts vinous grey. There is a black collar 
as in the cock, but edged above with whitish grey. 
Shape, long, but 
WILD LIFE. 
This dove feeds largely on the ground, either 
in open fields or under the shade of the trees. It 
frequents large groves in cultivated districts, and 
oR RuppDy TURTLE. 
Photo by Mr. D. Seth-Smith. 
From The Avicultura! Magazine. 
is frequently caught and offered for sale in India, 
but seldom finds its way to England, most of those 
for disposal being aviary-bred. It is very difficult 
to approach in its wild state, and keeps to the tree 
and bamboo jungle. 
Dwarr 
LIFE IN CAPTIVITY. 
The little Dwarf turtle is quite one of the nicest 
doves to keep. It is so small and dainty, and the 
colouring very charming. Imagine a trim little 
dove with a soft grey head, a black collar, and 
warm brick-coloured body, with black wing quills 
and whitish grey tail, and there you have a cock 
bird; and the hen is no less pretty with her 
plumage of real ‘‘dove colour” and soft dark eyes. 
It is such an advantage to be able to tell the 
sexes easily, for as a rule doves are so much alike 
that it is only after years that one can single out 
the sex of a bird with fair certainty, and even then 
there is sometimes a little doubt, for one may be 
misled by the birds themselves. I remember two 
Bleeding Heart pigeons that for long took me in 
by their loving ways to each other, and at last I 
found to my surprise that they were both cocks. 
The Ruddy Turtle was first kept at the Zoo in 
1862, and two years later it bred there. It is an 
casy dove to breed so far, but not so easy to rear 
the young ones to maturity; there is a world of 
difference in getting doves to nest and getting 
them to rear the young successfully. A large 
consignment of Dwarf turtles was received at 
Cologne in 1895; I have never known any 
quantity offered for sale in England. 
For some time I had to be content with two cocks 
for which I paid about 8/- each; it seemed no use 
hoping for a hen, for the natives did not seem to 
send any over. But after waiting for some time 
my chance came; a gentleman returning from 
India brought back four hen birds, and wrote offer- 
ing me them for 15/- each. I bought two, and 
the other two birds were each sold to a different 
owner. Out of the four hen birds only one (one 
of mine), I believe, survived for long; the other 
three died. So now it rested with my one little 
hen to restore the breed of the Ruddy Turtle in 
England, for I did not know of a single other hen 
bird at that time in the country. My birds soon 
nested and had some young ones, which I hoped at 
first were hens, but I was doomed to disappoint- 
ment—they were all cocks. 
When the little doves are almost ready to leave 
the nest they are very pretty indeed, so small and 
innocent-looking, dun colour, like the hen, with 
white foreheads, but without the black collar, and 
with bright dark eyes, and light-coloured beaks, 
like very pale flesh colour. After a time the collar 
comes, but if the young bird is a cock the change 
of colour in the plumage does not come till long 
after the dark ring band has appeared. 
Eventually I bred a hen bird, so having a second 
cock I had now two unrelated pairs. From these I: 
was able to supply young birds to aviculturalists 
all over the country ; these birds in turn bred again, 
and the Dwarf turtle is once more established in 
England, much to my pleasure. 
The eggs are white and two in number. Latterly 
the two pairs of birds I have now have not bred so 
many young ones as they should have done. The 
young birds do well till just out of the nest, when 
the parents desert them, and probably wish to start 
another nest again. In this case it is little one 
can do for them, and the poor little things get 
weaker and eventually die. This dove seems to 
stand our climate well, and does not appear to feel 
the cold. It breeds many times during the year, 
