8 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



darker at the base ; legs and feet bright chrome-yellow, sometimes almost 

 orange-yeUow, but never red or pink ; iris with two rings of colour, the inner 

 blue and the outer ranging from pink to bright crimson. 



Length about 13 to 14 in. (= 330 to 355 mm.) ; wing 7.25 to 7.80 in. 

 (= 184 to 200 mm.), average of sixty-three birds 7.42 in. (= 188.4 mm.) ; 

 tail about 4.5 in. (= 114.3) varying a good deal in length ; bUl at front about 

 .75 (=19.0 mm.) or a Uttle over, and from gape a little over 1 in. (^25.4 mm.) ; 

 tarsus about 1 in. (= 25.4 mm.). 



Young males of the year have the colour of the plumage rather less vivid, 

 and the hlac-purple of the wing-coverts absent until after the first moult. 

 They also average a good deal smaller, with a wing often as little as 7 in. 

 (= 177.8 mm.) and seldom over 7.2 in. (= 182.8 mm.). 



Adult female. The female only differs from the male in degree of colour- 

 ing, and a brightly-coloured female cannot be distinguished from a j'oung or 

 duUy-coloured male. As a rule the hlac on the wing is less in extent and 

 duller in colour ; the definition between the grey of the abdomen and the 

 yeUow of the breast is not so clear ; the under tail-coverts also have the 

 chestnut paler and less in extent and sometimes mixed with dark grey, 

 whilst the pale edges are correspondingly broader. 



Length from 12 to 13 in. ( = 304.8 to 330 mm.) with a %ving of 7.1 to 

 7.32 in. ( = 180.3 to 185.9 mm.), the average of forty bkds being 7.23 in. 

 ( = 173.6 mm.). The bill, tarsus and tail are all proportionately slightly 

 smaller than in the male. 



Distribution. The Bengal Green Pigeon is found throughout Bengal 

 and Behar up to the Himalayas and into Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan ; west 

 it extends throughout the United Provinces and Oudh as far west as the 

 Jumna, and Butler (Stray Feathers, IV) records it from Gujerat. It occurs 

 in Central India and also in northern Orissa, but in the south of these 

 presidencies it is replaced by chlorogaster, being found together with that 

 form over much of its north-western range. To the extreme north-east it 

 extends as far as Sadiya in Assam, birds from Dibrugarh, both north and 

 south of the Brahmapootra, being typical phoenicopterus. In the Naga BQUs, 

 Khasia, and north Cachar Hills, we stiU get fairly typical phoenicopterus, 

 with here and there a bird more like viridifrons, but south of these ranges 

 we find it overlaps with the eastern form ; birds from south Cachar, 

 Hylakandy and Sylhet being more or less intermediate though nearer 

 viridifrons than phoenicopterus, whilst birds from Chittagong are typical 

 specimens of the former subspecies. 



Nidification. Green Pigeons are early breeders and commence to 

 buUd very early in March, laying in the end of that month, and continuing 

 to do so up to June, whilst I have also known eggs laid occasionally as late 

 as the end of August. Their courtship, with its attendant attitudes and 

 " showing off," is much the same as that of the domestic and aU other Pigeons, 

 but as far as has been recorded hitherto, the attitudinizing never takes place 

 on the ground. The male bird puffs out his throat and breast, lowers his 

 wings, and ruffles out his feathers — and then prances solemnly up and down 

 a branch, contmually bowing his head and whistling softly as he makes liis 

 way backwards and forvvards, to and from the lady he imagines he is 

 captivating. Unhke most birds, the female does seem occasionally to admire 

 the display of the male and, if not feeding, wUl sometimes respond to the 

 extent of warbling out a few liquid notes and doing a minor " skirt-dance " 

 on her own account. 



