THE BIRDS OF THE AND A .UA N' A ND N J COB A R ISLANDS. 089 



found it very shy and difficult to shoot. It is quite silent so that you have 

 no means of knowing of its whereabouts : creeping through the jungle you 

 are startled by a tremendous flutter of wings overhead and get just a glimpse 

 of a large dark bird with a short white tail disappearing on the wrong side 

 of at least two thick trees. You may have time to get in the snappiest of 

 snapshots and it may be effective ; mine generally were not, though occa- 

 sionally the report would be followed by a cheery thud. Fortunately one 

 does sometimes get easy sitting shots and opportunities of observing the 

 birds fairly closely, but these are not often. 



I usually came across them singly or in parties of three or four to a dozen 

 or so. When feeding on the ground the Cakenas walks about much like a 

 large Emerald Dove, but carries its wings much lower, often, indeed, drooping 

 them so much as to give one the idea of their being injured at the shoulder. 



When not feeding they sit silent and alert on some bare horizontal bough 

 about thirty or forty feet from the ground ; seen thus they look very dark 

 in colour, almost blackish, as, indeed, they generally do when seen in the 

 shade. 



Their flight is swift and very strong, though heavy-looking ; the flutter 

 they make in leaving a tree is peculiarly loud and characteristic, so that I 

 could always tell by ear whether a bird flying out over my head was a 

 Caloenas or one of the common Imperial pigeons. 



When settling in a tree above one the clumsy way in which they pitch and 

 commence slowly walking along a thick bough has something rather fowl- 

 like about it; an impression which their large, heavy bodies and long legs 

 tend to increase. 



From the crops of the birds I killed on Car Nicobar I took quantities of 

 small seeds, but only of two kinds, one rather like a small prune stone, so 

 hard as to be almost unbreakable, and one much resembling a sunflower 

 seed. 



There was a large proportion of very young birds on Car Nicobar in 

 August, many with the head still covered with tiny quills : as they do not 

 breed on Car these must have left the nesting place on Batti Malve, and 

 crossed the nineteen miles of sea which separate the two islands, at a very 

 early age. 



The hackles of this pigeon are so long and delicate that when a freshly 

 killed bird is carried by the legs they reverse and droop downwards around 

 its head in a shining canopy of feathery curves. 



Words fail to describe the beauty of this glorious pigeon. The lean, game- 

 looking, iron-grey head and neck, the streaming rufl: of long glittering 

 hackles, the heavy body and strong broad wings of lustrous metallic green, 

 changing in every light and set off by the square snow-white tail, all combine 

 to make it one of the loveliest of known birds. 



Nefer shall I forget my first Cakenas ! 



