The dove family ought to have become extinct ages ago, if all that
orthodox zoologists tell us about the fierce struggle for existence be
true. They form a regular “Thirteen Society.” They do everything they
should not do, they disobey every rule of animal warfare, they fall
asleep when sitting exposed on a telegraph wire, they build nests in all
manner of foolish places, their nests are about as unsafe as a nursery
can possibly be, and they flatly decline to lay protectively coloured
eggs—their white eggs are a standing invitation to bird robbers to
indulge, like the Cambridge crew of 1906, in an egg diet; yet, in spite
all of these foolhardy acts, doves flourish like the green bay tree. This
is a fact of which I require an explanation before I can accept all the
doctrines of the Neo-Darwinian school.
There are so many species of dove in India that when speaking of them one
must perforce, unless one be writing a great monograph, confine oneself
to two or three of the common species. I propose to-day to talk about our
three commonest Indian doves, that is to say, the spotted dove (_Turtur
suratensis_), the Indian ring-dove (_Turtur risorius_), and the little
brown dove (_Turtur cambayensis_). I make no apology for discoursing upon
these common species. I contend that we in India know so very little
about even our everyday birds that it is a needless expenditure of energy
to seek out the rarer species and study their habits; we have plenty to
learn about those that come into our verandahs and coo to us.
The curious distribution of our common Indian doves has not, so far as I
know, been explained. In very few places are all three common. One or
other of them is usually far more abundant than the others, and this one
is usually the spotted dove. It is the commonest dove of Calcutta, of
Madras, of Travancore, of Tirhoot, of Lucknow, but not of Lahore or
Bombay or the Deccan. Why is this? Why is it that, whereas the Deccan is
literally overrun by the ring- and the little brown dove, one can go from
Bombay to Malabar without meeting one of these species, but seeing
thousands of the spotted dove?
The only explanation that I can offer of this phenomenon is that the
spotted dove is the most pugnacious and the most pushing; that where he
chooses to settle down he ousts the other species of dove more or less
completely; but he, fortunately for the other species, does not choose to
settle down in all parts of India. He objects to dry places. Hence he is
not seen at Lahore or in the Deccan, or in the drier parts of the United
Provinces, such as Agra, Muttra, Etawah, and Cawnpore.
This is only a theory of mine, and a theory in favour of which I am not
able to adduce very much evidence, since my personal knowledge of India
is confined to some half-a-dozen widely separated places. Moreover, this
theory does not explain the absence of the spotted dove from Bombay. I
should be very glad to know if there are any other moist parts of India
where the spotted dove is not the most abundant of the cooing family.
The nest of the dove is a subject over which most ornithologists have
waxed sarcastic. A more ramshackle structure does not exist; yet the
absurd thing is that doves are most particular about the materials they
use.
The other day I watched, with much amusement, a little brown dove at work
nest building. It was constructing a shake-down in a small Lonicera bush.
Now, obviously, since the nest is just a few twigs and stalks thrown
together, any kind of short twig or stem will serve for building
material. This, however, was not the view of the dove. If that creature
had been constructing the Forth Bridge it could not have been more
particular as regards the materials it picked up. It strutted about the
ground, taking into its bill all manner of material only to reject it,
until at last it picked up a dead grass stalk and flew off with it in
triumph!
Presumably doves take the same trouble in selecting a site for their
nest, nevertheless they sometimes eventually choose the most impossible
spot. Thus Mr. A. Anderson has recorded the existence of a nest of a pair
of little brown doves that “was placed close to the fringe of the
_kunnaut_ of his tent on one of the corner ropes, where it is double for
some six inches and there knotted. The double portion was just broad
enough, being three inches apart, to support the nest with careful
balancing; the _knot_ acted as a sort of _buffer_ and prevented the twigs
from sliding off, which most assuredly would otherwise have been the
case, for the rope just there was at an angle of 45°.”
Those foolish birds were not permitted to bring up their young, because
the tent had to be struck before the eggs were laid.
In Lahore a favourite nesting site for the little brown dove is on the
top of the rolled-up portion of the verandah _chik_. As the _chik_ is
composed of stout material, the rolled-up portion forms an excellent
platform some four inches broad. But as the doves nest just as the
weather is beginning to grow warm, the little home is apt to be somewhat
rudely broken up. One pair, however, has this year successfully reared up
two young hopefuls in a nest on this somewhat precarious site. The doings
of these form the subject of the next article.
I once came across a nest of this little dove in a low, prickly bush
beside a small canal distributory, three miles outside Lahore. The dove
appeared to have used as the foundation for its nest an old one of the
striated bush babbler (_Argya caudata_). (I object to calling this bird
the common babbler, since, like common sense, it is not very common.) In
the same bush, at the same level, that is to say, about a yard from the
ground and only a couple of feet from the dove’s nest, was that of a
striated bush babbler containing three dark blue eggs. This is a case
upon which those who believe that eggs laid in open nests are
protectively coloured would do well to ponder.
There, side by side, in precisely the same environment, were two
nests—one containing white and the other dark blue eggs. Obviously both
sets of eggs could not be protectively coloured; as a matter of fact,
both clutches of eggs were conspicuous objects. It not infrequently
happens that the Indian robin (_Thamnobia cambayensis_), which lays white
eggs thickly spotted with reddish brown, brings up a family in a disused
nest of a striated bush babbler’s. The eggs of this latter are dark blue.
It is surely time that zoologists gave up throwing at us their
everlasting theory of protective colouring. If this were a _sine qua non_
of the safety of birds’ eggs, then the whole dove tribe would, long ago,
have ceased to exist.
This family presents the ornithologist with yet another problem in
colouration. In every species, except the red turtle-dove (_Oenopopelia
tranquebarica_), both sexes are coloured alike. In this latter, however,
there is very pronounced sexual dimorphism. The ruddy wing feathers of
the cock enable one to distinguish him at once from his mate and from
every other dove. Now the habits of this dove appear to be exactly like
those of all other species. It constructs the same kind of nest and in
similar situations; why then the sexual dimorphism in this species and in
no other species? If the lady rufous turtle-dove likes nice ruddy wings,
and thus the red wing has been evolved in the cock bird, why has she too
not inherited it? I presume that even the most audacious Neo-Darwinian
will not talk about her greater need of protection when sitting on the
nest, for if she needs protection, how much more so do her white eggs?
Further, it is my belief that the cock bird takes his turn in the
incubation.
It must not be thought that I am needlessly poking fun at modern
biologists. I merely desire to call attention to the unsolved problems
that confront us on all sides, and to protest against the dogmatism of
biology which declares that the Darwinian theory explains the whole of
organic nature. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that the field
naturalist cannot but feel that natural selection is turning out rather a
failure.
In conclusion, one more word regarding the red turtle-dove. Its
distribution has not been carefully worked out, and what we do know of it
is not easy to explain. Hume says that it breeds in all parts of India,
but is very capriciously distributed, and he is unable to say what kind
of country it prefers, and why it is common in one district and rare in a
neighbouring one in which all physical conditions appear identical.
It is very common in the bare, arid, treeless region that surrounds the
Sambhur Lake. It is common in some dry, well-cultivated districts, like
Etawah, where there are plenty of old mango groves. It is very common in
some of the comparatively humid tracts, like Bareilly, and again in the
_sal_ jungles of the Kumaun _Bhabar_ and the Nepal _Terai_. On the other
hand, over wide extents of similar country it is scarcely to be seen.
Doubtless there is something in its food or manner of life that limits
its distribution, but no one has yet been able to make out what this
something is.