

wing 6*5, tail 5*5 ; and I find that specimens from India, Turkey, Palestine, and Japan vary in 

 size as follows — wing 6 - 4 to 7 - 2, tail 5 - to 5"7, which shows how little the difference in size can 

 be taken into consideration in making a new species. 



I may here mention that Dr. Severtzoff includes it in his list of the birds of Turkestan with 

 a query, and he was unable to give me any definite information respecting it. It occurs, how- 

 ever, certainly in Japan and China, and also straggles to South-east Siberia ; for Dr. von Schrenck 

 mentions that Mr. Maximowicz obtained one on the 5th November, near the Mariinskischen Post, 

 close to 52° N. lat. 



It is not included by Temminck and Schlegel in the ' Fauna Japonica ;' but it cannot be rare 

 in Japan, as there were several specimens in a collection I lately received from Yedo ; and in 

 China, Mr. Swinhoe writes (P. Z. S. 1871, p. 397), it is found frequenting the trees of villages 

 near the Great Wall, but not at Pekin itself. 



In habits this Dove is said to resemble the Egyptian Turtle Dove, as also in its mode of 

 nidification. It makes a slight platform of sticks on a tree or bush, in Turkey selecting the 

 cypresses, and in Ceylon showing a partiality for the Euphorbia-bushes, and deposits two eggs, 

 pure white in colour, and rather elongated-oval in shape. I am indebted to Mr. Rhodes W. 

 Morgan for several eggs of this Dove, taken by him at Kurnoul, in Southern India, which 

 average in size about 1/^ by f^- inch. 



This Dove is by no means particular as to the selection of any particular season of the year 

 for nidification ; and Mr. A. O. Hume says that he has taken eggs in every month from December 

 to August, and has no doubt that others have found them in the remaining quarter. The nest, 

 he writes (Nests and Eggs of Ind. B. p. 507), " is placed on any bush or tree — prickly and thorny 

 sites, such as are afforded by the Zizyphus, the wild date, babool, Euphorbia, &c, being often, 

 but by no means universally, selected. Generally the nest is within fifteen, not very rarely 

 within five feet of the ground ; but, again, I have found it thirty or forty feet up a large tree. 

 The nest is placed indifferently in a fork, in amongst numerous prongs, on a broad horizontal 

 bough — anywhere, in fact, where a secure and sufficiently wide basis can be found, and is usually 

 a mere platform, some six inches in diameter, composed of thin twigs and lined with grass-stems, 

 with a slight depression in the centre. Occasionally the nest is rather more saucer-like ; a few 

 roots or grass-stems are not unfrequently intermingled ; and I have seen nests composed wholly 

 of grass." According to Mr. A. Andersson it sometimes breeds on the ground; and he found, on 

 the 20th November, a nest, consisting of a few dry twigs and grass-stalks, placed on the bare 

 sand, and containing two eggs. 



The note of this Dove is said to differ from that of the common caged Turtle Dove, and is 

 by Blyth stated to resemble the syllables kookoo-koo, kookoo-koo. Dr. Jerdon says that in con- 

 finement the two birds interbreed readily, and produce fertile offspring, which is intermediate in 

 size and coloration as well as in note. 



The present species has by some authors been considered to be the bird referred to by Brehm 

 (Vogelfang, p. 258) as Peristera intercedens ; but this view I cannot for a moment indorse. Brehm, 

 as usual, gives no proper description of his bird ; and as he says that it inhabits East Africa, where 

 the present species is not found, he cannot refer to it. 



I purposed giving to my readers a short review of the different African Turtle Doves allied 



