150 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



In the Altai and in Turkestan, they are reported to build nests of the regular 

 Stock-Dove type in trees, mere platforms of twigs, many of which must have 

 been torn from the living tree. These are well twisted, not merely laid criss- 

 cross as is the case with the Rock-Doves' nests, which are buUt on a firm 

 foundation of rock or wall. On the other hand there is no lining. 



As far as my correspondents' information goes, the nests are generally 

 placed, quite unconcealed, upon clusters of twigs or a stout branch of some 

 tree, poplars appearing to be the favourite one, and they are not tucked away 

 amongst creepers or ivy, as tlie European Stock-Dove's nest so often is. 



The eggs are, of cour.se, pure white as usual, and only differ from those of 

 the European bird in being a great deal smaller. The eggs in my collection 

 from Altai average 1.50 in. by 1.16 in. ( = 38.1 by 29.4 mm.) and are probably 

 not eggs of the real Eastern form ; a single egg from Afghanistan, taken by 

 the late Lieut. H. E. Barnes, measures only 1.35 in. by 1.03 in. ( = 34.3 by 

 26.1 mm.) — this, an undoubted egg of the smaller Eastern bird, is probably 

 typical of what the egg should be in size. 



Throughout the greater part of India visited by the Eastern 

 Stock-Dove, the bird is only a winter-visitor. In its extreme eastern 

 limit, Behar, Inglis teUs me that it is a visitor only during late December, 

 January and February, but that it turns up regularly every year, and 

 the natives know it weU, having a distinct name for it. Reid does not 

 appear to have noticed this Pigeon in the Lucknow district until March 

 and April, when he says they appear " in vast flocks when the spring 

 crops are ripening and being cut, and disappear in the beginning of 

 May." Hume says that he only once came across them in Sind, but 

 unfortunately does not mention the month ; he adds that at some periods 

 they are much more numerous than they were at the time he saw them. 



But even in the mountains they are to some extent migratory, 

 for Ward records them as only passing migrants in Kashmir, and 

 Whitehead says that " they migrate through Kohat in the latter half 

 of April in small flocks." 



Their habits probably do not differ in any way from that 

 of the European bird. They are strictly arboreal normally, but 

 descend freely enough to the ground when tempted thereto by ripe 

 crops, and the wheat-growers in parts of the United Provinces 

 declare them to be a pest which, if they are to be believed, is even 

 worse than what our farmers at home complain of in connexion with 

 the Stock -Dove or Wood-Pigeon of our o\vn isles. 



Jerdon writes of this bird : " It flies in pretty large flocks and affects 

 trees. A correspondent of the Bengal Sporting Review states that he 

 saw them in himdreds at Hansi in March, but they soon disappeared. 

 They feed in the fields, morning and evening, and roost in the day 

 (and I suppose in the night also) in trees, generally in the common 



