48 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



My collectors found this bird very rare in the south of Tenasserim, 

 but sent me thence several specimens both of birds and their eggs. 

 During the months of November to February the birds kept much 

 to the outskirts of jungle and the more open country, assembling 

 in very large numbers, together with other Pigeons and fruit-eating 

 birds, wherever there were trees in fruit ; but although the total 

 numbers so collected may have been large, the flocks are said 

 to have always been small, numbering some half dozen or so only. 

 Their flight, voice, and general habits were said to be like those of 

 Treron nepalensis, a bird very well known to the collectors. 



Davison seems to think that the birds worked south in spring, 

 but this was probable merely because they retired into deeper forest 

 during the breeding-season, and so escaped observation. He says 

 of this Pigeon : " This species only makes it appearance in Tenasserim 

 for a couple of months, in December and January. It occurs in small 

 flocks about the borders of the forest. Its note is very similar to that 

 of 0. vernans. It is apparently rare and very local, as I only met with 

 it in two places near Bankasoon, though I was always on the look out 

 for it. 



" It appeared to have come solely to eat the berries, much resembling 

 red currants, of a thick bushy shrub about two feet in height which, 

 near the Pakchem, grows about the clearings." 



OSMOTRERON BISINCTA. 



Key to the Subspecies. 



A. Wing under 6 in 0. b. bisincta. 



B. Wing over 6 in O.b. domvillii. 



