Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles Nicolas Sigisbert: Travels in upper and lower Egypt (Band 1) (London, 1807)

310 TRAVELS IN UPPER.

of a delicate lint gray; the stomach and the belly
are of a dirty white. The first plumes of the
wings are brown shaded with red, and the others
ash coloured, and bordered, without and within, of
a light ash gray. The feathers of the tajl are, in
gradation, of a light ash colour, and terminated
with white, excepting the one most exterior on
each side, which is entirely white. All the plumes,
those of the wings, as those of the tail, are, under-
neath, of a deep ash colour for nearly a third parfc
of Iheir length; the remainder is white, but their
.colour is much lighter in the females. The iris of
the eye is orange-coloured ; the beak, ashen; the
tarsus and the toes are of a rose colour.

J preserved, during two years, several pairs of
these beautifuj birds, and I never could perceive
any alteration in the colours of their plumage ;
from whence jt follows, that the other turtles,
which might be compared with them, are of dif-
ferent species, or, at least, of constant varieties in
the same species; such are, for example, the tur-
tle-doves, with a ring round their necks, of Bar-
bary, which would perfectly resemble these, if the
ground of their plumage were not of a beautiful
white ; it further follows from this, that the know-
ledge of the species of turtle doves, foreign to our
climate, is not yet acquired, and that in being too
hasty in classing together several kinds, in reality

separate,