16 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



a long time trying to balance t^vigs in quite impossible positions. 

 Nesting-sites, such as branches or boards put in convenient positions 

 for them, never seemed to catch their fancy, and they appeared 

 infinitely to prefer trying to make a foundation of twigs on a perch, 

 wliich, invariably blew or tumbled off before it had advanced far 

 enough to be of any use. 



They are great climbers, and if one is fortunate enough to get 

 under a tree upon which they are feeding, without being noticed, he 

 will see them clambering about from branch to branch, and from one 

 twig to another, often leaning over to seize some special tit-bit, until 

 they appear to be standing on their heads. They are not very shy 

 birds, and many a time have I watched them for half an hour until 

 some awkward movement of mine, or a sound of some kind, has startled 

 them. Once frightened they all immediately sink into absolute 

 silence, trusting to the way their green plumage and the green leaves 

 blend to preserve them from molestation. Naturallj^ when much 

 shot at, they soon become wild, and then the would-be observer must 

 be quiet indeed if he can steal under a tree upon which they are 

 feeding without driving them headlong out of it. Yet sometimes, 

 even when a good deal fired at, they show great persistence in the 

 way they cling to one place, or one set of trees, and it may take several 

 evenings shooting before they finally make up their minds that the 

 place is too hot for them. I remember one tree at which these birds 

 continued to feed for some six or eight evenings and mornings, although 

 they were more or less shot at every evening, and once or twice in the 

 mornings as well. In this case the tree was an enormous .single wild- 

 plum standing isolated from all jmigle in the middle of a tea- 

 garden, and so lofty that the top of the tree was quite beyond shot. 

 At first the birds fed all over this tree, and flighted mto it quite low 

 down, giving excellent shots as they approached ; but the last day or 

 two they altered their tactics, and arriving out of shot high overhead 

 plunged into the tree at the very summit, and were off agam like a 

 flash when some unwise bird, flying lower than the rest, tempted us 

 to have a shot. 



Swift as the flight of these birds undoubtedly is, it is not perhaps 

 as quick as some of its smaller relations, such as Treron nepalensis 

 and Osmotreron pJiayrei, but it is decidely faster than either of our 

 Indian species of Sphenocercus. I have often noticed that, after firmg 



