ASHY-HEADED GREEN PIGEON 35 



the birds seem to be more or less gregarious though, perforce, they 

 have to break up into comparatively small flocks. At the same time, 

 I do not remember any month of the year in which I have not seen 

 them in small flocks, as well as singly or in pairs. Nor are these small 

 flocks composed of young birds or unwilling bachelors and spinsters, 

 for birds examined have been proved to be fuUy adult, whilst both 

 sexes have been seen or shot in the same flocks. The note of the Ashy- 

 headed Green Pigeon has been described as being less musical 

 than that of some of the other Green Pigeons, but I cannot 

 say that I have noted this to be the case. It may be somewhat less 

 varied and with a smaller range of notes, but to me it sounds as soft 

 and melodious as any of its cousins, except perhaps bisincta, the 

 Orange-breasted Green Pigeon. 



When they are quite undistvu'bed and have no idea that anyone 

 is watching or listening to them, the members of a flock will continue 

 to whistle to one another as they feed, and the volume of sound thus 

 made is very sweet and fuU. Although, as I have said, naturally 

 shy birds, they very soon become used to being watched, and if not 

 fired at or interfered with in any way, soon lose their shyness and 

 become very tame. In one of the police-stations in the Dibrugarh 

 district some enormous pepul trees grow in the compound, two of 

 their number overhanging the station-building itseK. Here the birds 

 are so accustomed to people constantly moving about below them, 

 that they take absolutely no notice and, as they are never fired at 

 in the compound, the birds swarm here, even when the trees are not 

 in fruit, when firing is going on anywhere near. 



I do not think that the Ashy-headed Green Pigeon drinks 

 regularly morning or evening, but I have noticed more than once these 

 birds drinking about noon, when they have ceased feeding and were 

 about to take their mid-day rest. 



Invariably, when noticed on these occasions, the birds drank by 

 climbing down the cane-brakes or creepers which stood in swamps, 

 until they could reach the water, when they drank their fiU, and then 

 clambered back to a more convenient perch. They rest much in the 

 middle of the day in cane-brakes, which form dense masses of jimgle 

 in the morasses at the foot of the hills, though they also frequent tall 

 tree-forest for the same purpose. 



Like aU their relations, I am sorry to say that they are very 



D 2 



