The nest is the usual slight structure of sticks; the eggs two, oval, and white. They breed twice, and sometimes three times, in one season, the last brood being hatched as late as April or even May.
[363.] CHAMÆPELIA TALPACOTI (Temm.).
(TALPACOTI DOVE.)
Chamæpelia talpacoti, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 133; White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 626 (Salta).
Description.—Above deep reddish vinaceous; head plumbeous; wings black; coverts and outer secondaries like the back, but the latter spotted with elongated black bands on the outer webs; tail black, tipped with vinaceous; middle rectrices like the back: beneath similar, but not so dark, and whitish on the throat; bill black; feet yellow: whole length 6·5 inches, wing 3·5, tail 2·5. Female similar, but much duller and more brownish.
Hab. Brazil, Paraguay, and Northern Argentina.
The Talpacoti or Chocolate Dove is an inhabitant of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay. In Argentina it occurs only on the northern frontiers, and was met with by White at Oran, in the province of Salta, in the month of November:—“These pretty chocolate-coloured Doves,” he tells us, “fly in pairs, and at this date were found constructing their nests in the orange-groves. They are sometimes seen on the ground busily in quest of seeds, but are very wild and not at all common.”
White also obtained specimens of this Dove at Concepcion in Misiones.