862 Drafts for a Fauna Indica. [No. 168. 



defined; nuchal feathers divergent at their tips, and brightly glossed 

 with changeable green and reddish- purple ; two black bars on the 

 wing* ; the primaries tinged with brownish, and the outermost tail- 

 feather having its external web gradually more albescent to the base. 

 I rides, brownish- orange ; the lids bluish- white : bill black, with a white 

 mealiness at the tumid base of its upper mandible : and legs reddish- 

 pink. Length, thirteen by twenty- three inches ; of wing, eight inches 

 and three-quarters. 



Mr. Jerdon rightly remarks — " The blue pigeon abounds all over In- 

 dia, being occasionally found in the more open spaces of jungles, especi- 

 ally in rocky districts, and in the neighbourhood of water- falls ; but 

 more generally in the open country, inhabiting walls of villages, pago- 

 das, wells, and any large buildings, and breeding chiefly in old walls." 

 Another observer, writing of it in the eastern districts of Bengal, remarks, 

 — " Large colonies of these birds inhabit every moogur, mhutf, and 

 mass of ruins in the country, where, in company with the (house) 



* In some specimens, particularly among the semi-domestic, slight dusky streaks 

 occur on the shafts of the lesser wing-coverts, which, in the latter, are often much more 

 developed, spreading across the feathers and spotting the whole wing : such birds 

 much resembling (except in the rump not being white) a race of wild pigeons that are 

 abundantly brought at times to the London markets— all of them shot birds ; but the 

 latter have not, in addition, the two black bands on the wing well defined, as seems to be 

 regularly the case with this variety of C. intermedia. Moreover, in the English bird, 

 the spotting of the lesser wing-coverts does not occur on the shafts of the feathers, but 

 partly margins each web, excepting near the edge of the wing, where the feathers are 

 unspotted. 1 suspect that the wild rock pigeons of the south of England are mostly of 

 the kind alluded to, which may be designated C. affinis ; while those of North Bri- 

 tain, and it would seem of Europe generally, are true C. livia. 



Here, again, we have three closely allied species, analogous to the three yellow- 

 footed Hurrials, Treron viridifrons, Tr. phoenicoptera, and Tr. chlor ig aster ; and if 

 they are to be regarded as mere varieties of the same, what limits can be assigned to the 

 further variation of wild species ? Col. leuconota is but a step more removed, and I doubt 

 not would equally merge and blend with the others in a state of domesticity. Equally 

 allied are— Treron sphenura and Tr. cantillans ; Tr. apicauda and Tr.oxyura; 

 and if we grant also some variation of size, we have Tr. bicincta and Tr. vernans ; Tr. 

 malabarica and Tr. chloroptera ; Turtur chinensis and T. suratensis ; T. meena and 

 T. auriius ; §c. <SfC, which might be regarded as local varieties of the same, and we 

 might thus go on reducing species ad infinitum, with no useful definite result, but to the 

 utter confusion of all discriminative classification. However closely races may resem- 

 ble, if they present absolute and constant differences, whether of size, proportions, or 

 colouring, and if they manifest no tendency to grade from one to the other, except in 

 cases of obvious intermixture, we are justified in considering them as distinct and se- 

 parate ; and more especially, if each, or either, has a wide range of geographic distribu- 

 tion, without exhibiting any climatal or local variation, 

 f Rude Hindoo temple. 



