SPHEXOCEllCUS. 



Sphenocercus sphenurus (Vigors). The Wedge-tailed Green 

 Pigeon. 



Sphenocercus splienurus ( Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 453 ; Hume, Rough 



Draft N. ^ E. no. 778. 



The Wedge-tailed Green Pigeon or Kokla breeds throughout 

 the outer ranges of the Himalayas south of the first Snowy Eange, 

 at elevations of from 4000 to 7000 feet. To the Himalayas west 

 of the Ganges they are merely summer visitants, and this may also 

 be the case in Kumaon, Nepal, and Sikhim, though I have not as 

 yet positively verified the fact. West of the Ganges they arrive 

 early in April, and by November have all disappeared, not to the 

 low valleys of these same hills, not to the plains that lie below 

 them, but elsewhere. 



Long ago Captain Hutton wrote to me : — " What becomes of 

 the Kokla, which, arriving in early summer, retires again in small 

 parties as the autumn sets in ? Where do they then go to ? 

 Within the mountains of the North-west not one remains, neither 

 are they to be found in winter in the warmer region of the Dehra 

 Dhoon, although the Hurrial {Treron phoeyiicoptera) still remains 

 there. Leaving us, as it does, as soon as the summer heats de- 

 crease, it evidently seeks a warmer climate, where the fruits and 

 berries upon which it feeds are procurable, till spring returns, and 

 it seems therefore by no means improbable that they may select 

 the Eastern isles. But have they ever yet been found there ? 

 Blyth, in his ' Catalogue of Birds,' merely assigns the 'Himalaya' 

 as their habitat, which is obviously incorrect, as it is merely a 

 summer visitor to the hills, and we consequently still require to 

 know where it resides at other seasons." 



In 'Lahore to Tarkand'(p. 119) I drew attention to the re- 

 markable fact that " vast multitudes of a large and conspicuous 

 species, tenanting during the summer a zone of hills varying from 

 twenty to one hundred miles in width, and stretching at any rate 

 from the borders of Afghanistan to the banks of the Ganges at 

 Hurdwar, absolutely desert us duinng the winter, and no one has 

 yet explained what becomes of them." We know that they 

 neither went noi-th, south, nor west, and hence I concluded that 

 they must go eastwards, and recent inquiries that I have made, and 

 collections that I have examined, lead me to the conclusion that a 

 great proportion of these Koklas migrate to Assam, Cachar, Tip- 

 pei'ah, Burma, and even the northern portions of Tenasserim, in 

 all hilly and forest-clad localities, in \Ahich they appear to be com- 

 mon during the \Ainter, and either rare or wanting during the 

 summer. 



In the Himalayas they breed from April to July (most com- 

 monly at an elevation of 5000 feet), making a slight platform-nest 

 composed of coarse grass and small dry twigs, loosely laid on some 



