Volume 9, Plate XXIII / Ornithology (Birds)

Tambourine Ground Dove

Peristera tympanistria

A native of South Africa, named for the male’s loud cooing notes that resemble a tambourine at a distance, but apparently scarce, with rounded concave wings and an attenuated first quill. A neat clean bird nearly nine inches long, its upper plumage is bistre-brown with lustrous blackish-green spots on the greater wing-coverts, the forehead, eye-streak, and under plumage pure white, and the bill and legs grey tinged red.