296 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
small race of this Dove is found in Hainan, and lias been named M. minor 
by Mr. Swinboe. 
The Cuckoo Doves are remarkable for their barred plumage and the 
great length of their tails. They are of a shy disposition^ keeping to thick 
forests and associating in small flocks ; they chiefly feed on trees^ seldom 
descendiog to the ground. They breed in trees^ making a nest of twigs, 
and laying two eggs. Captain Wardlaw Ramsay found the nest of the 
present species on the Karin hills in March. 
656. MACHOPYGIA ASSIMILIS. 
THE TENASSERIM CUCKOO DOVE. 
Macropygia assimilis, Hume, S. F. ii. p. 441 ; Wald. in Bl. B. Burm. p. 146 ; 
Wardlmu Ramsay, Ibis, 1877, p. 468 ; IIu7ne Sj- Dav. S. F. vi. p. 420 ; Hume, 
S. F. viii. p. 110. 
Description. Forehead and crown chestnut, the black bases of the 
feathers showing through in some places; sides of the head and neck, 
hind neck and back brown minutely freckled with greyish white ; rump 
and upper tail-coverts brown, suffused with rufous at the edges ; wing- 
coverts, scapulars and tertiaries dark brown tipped with chestnut ; quills 
dark brown ; chin and throat fulvous ; lower plumage rufous blotched with 
black on the breast ; under wing-coverts chestnut ; the four central tail- 
feathers brown, the others brown at base and the remainder chestnut with 
a subterminal dusky bar. 
Legs and feet dark brownish red; bill pinkish red or pale purplish 
brown ; irides sometimes grey, at other times grey with an inner ring of 
blue, at others pearly white ; orbital skin pale blue. {Davison.) 
Length 13 inches, tail 6*5, wing 5'6, tarsus '7, bill from gape '9. 
Mr. Blyth gives M. ruficeps from Burmah ; but when he wrote his 
Catalogue the present closely allied species had not been discriminated. 
I do not think it probable that both species occur in Tenasserim. 
The present bird differs from M. ruficeps from Sumatra and Java in 
having black marks on the breast, and in having the hind neck and back 
brown with no metallic gloss. 
The Tenasserim Cuckoo Dove was obtained by Mr. Davison on Mooleyit 
mountain, and further north at Kollidoo, and it does not appear to be very 
rare. Captain Wardlaw Ramsay procured it on the Karin hills, east of 
Tonghoo, at an elevation of 3000 feet ; and Mr. de Wet sent it to me from 
the same hills. 
It is difficult to trace its distribution out of Burmah ; but it extends 
some way down the Malay peninsula, Mr. Hume having received it from 
tJlu Langat. 
