Insects and birds, on account of the vast number of species they present, furnish the best available material for the study of evolution. It is owing to the fact that most Professors of Zoology are neither entomologists nor ornithologists that biological science is in its present deplorably backward condition. There exists scarcely a zoological theory, be it neo-Lamarckian or neo-Darwinian, that the competent ornithologist is not able to refute. For example, writing of sexual dimorphism in animals, Cunningham states that in the case of birds which exhibit such dimorphism the cocks differ essentially in habits from the hens, and in this way he, as a Lamarckian, would account for their external differences. “The cocks of common fowls and of the PhasianidÆ generally,” he writes, “are polygamous, fight with each other for the possession of females, and take no part in incubation or care of the young, and they differ from the hens in their enlarged brilliant plumage, spurs on the legs, and combs, wattles, or other excrescences on the head. In the ColumbidÆ, per contra, the males are not polygamous, but pair for life, the males do not fight, and share equally with the females in parental duties. Corresponding with the contrast of sexual habits is the contrast of sexual dimorphism, which is virtually absent in the ColumbidÆ.”

Mr. Cunningham evidently is not acquainted with the red turtle dove (Œnopopelia tranqebarica) so common in India, or he would not have asserted that sexual dimorphism is virtually absent in the ColumbidÆ. The sexes in this species are very different in appearance, and I know of nothing peculiar in its habits to explain this dissimilarity. The sexual dimorphism displayed by the red turtle dove is a fact equally awkward for the Wallaceians, because the habits of this species appear to be in no way different from those of the other doves. I have seen red turtle doves feeding in company with the three other common species of Indian dove; they eat the same kind of food, build the same ramshackle nests, and lay the usual white eggs. But I will not spend time in whipping a dying horse. The poor overburdened beast which we call Natural Selection has done yeoman service; for years he has pulled the great car of Zoology along the rugged road of knowledge, and now that he is past work, now that he stands tugging impotently at the traces, it is time to pension him and replace him by a new steed. Unfortunately, the drivers of the coach happen to be old gentlemen, so old that they fail to perceive that the coach is at a standstill. They believe that they are still travelling along as merrily as they were in Darwin’s time. Ere long their seats will be occupied by new drivers, who will give the good steed Natural Selection a well-earned rest, and replace him by a fresh animal called Mutation. Then once again the coach will resume its journey.

The red turtle dove is a little bird, and the hen looks like an exceptionally small specimen of the ring dove. So great is the resemblance that a hen red turtle dove was shown at the United Provinces Exhibition at Allahabad as a ring dove. The cock red turtle dove has a pretty grey head, a black half-collar running round the back of his neck, which, as Jerdon remarks, is “well set off by whitish above,” while the remainder of his upper plumage is dull brick red. The hen is clothed in greyish brown, in the hue known as dove colour, and her one ornament is a black half-collar similar to that of the cock.

The best friends of turtle doves can scarcely maintain that they have melodious voices. Phil Robinson, writing of the species which visits England, contrasts its note with the “mellow voluptuous cooing of the ring-dove.” “The call of the turtle dove,” he says, “is unamiable, usually grumbling, and often absolutely disagreeable. To the imagination it is a sulky and discontented bird, perpetually finding fault with its English surroundings of foliage, weather, and food. ‘Do, for goodness’ sake get those eggs hatched, my dear, and let us get back to Italy.’ That is the burden of his grumble, morning, noon, and night.”

Phil Robinson’s opinion of the call of the red turtle dove is not on record; this is unfortunate, for, assuredly, it would be a document worthy to be placed side by side with Mr. Lloyd George’s invective against the House of Lords!

To describe the note of the turtle dove as a coo would be to violate the truth. It is a sepulchral grunt, the kind of sound one might expect of a ring dove suffering from an acute sore throat. The only other bird which makes a noise in any way resembling the call of the turtle dove is an owl that makes itself heard in India shortly after the shades of night have fallen. To what species this owl belongs I know not, for it is no easy matter to fix on the owner of a voice heard only after dark, and the descriptions of the cries of the various owls given in ornithological works are anything but illuminating. The owl in question is, I think, the brown fish owl (Ketupa ceylonsis), but of this I am not certain.

The red turtle dove occurs throughout India, but, as in the case of the other species of dove, its distribution appears to be capricious. It is a permanent resident in the United Provinces, and, possibly, in South India, although I am inclined to think that it goes north to breed. Of this I am not sure. It never does to be sure of anything connected with doves; they are most unreliable birds. To give a concrete instance. Having lived for two years at Lahore, and having seen any number of red turtle doves there during the hot weather, but not even the shadow of one in the cold season, I was rash enough to assert in a scientific journal: “There is no doubt that this species is merely a summer visitor to Lahore.” As if to stultify me, some red turtle doves took into their heads to remain on in Lahore during the following winter, and at the end of September, when they ought to have been far away, a pair of them were hatching out eggs. On the 27th of that month Mr. Currie found a nest containing three fresh eggs. The laying of three eggs was an additional piece of effrontery on the part of the lady turtle dove, and she was rewarded by having them captured by Mr. Currie. As every one knows, two is the correct number of eggs for a respectable pair of doves. I have found dozens of doves’ nests, but have never seen more than two eggs in any of them. Two is the normal number for the red turtle dove, but this species has a trick of occasionally laying three, and so would seem to be departing from the traditions of the family in the matter of egg-laying.

As regards architecture, it has not made any advances on the vulgar herd of doves. Its nursery is the typical slight structure over which so many ornithologists have waxed sarcastic—a few slender sticks, or pieces of grass, or both, so loosely and sparsely put together that the eggs can generally be spied from below through the bottom of the nest. Hume states that he has always found the nest at or near the extremities of the lower branches of very large trees, at heights of from eight to fifteen feet from the ground. My experience agrees with Hume’s in that the nests are placed in tall trees, but all those that I have observed have been situated high up in the tree at a level not less than twenty feet above the ground. Mr. Currie states that the nests he found at Lahore in May and June were also in high trees, forty or fifty feet from the ground, but that the nests which he found in August and September of the individuals who elected to winter at Lahore were placed in bushes or low trees, and were not more than twelve feet above the earth, one of them being at an elevation of but four feet.