10 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
deer, and, on the other hand, I have had fine shooting at these birds as 
they scuttled headlong from one banyan tree (Ficus indica) to another 
in the heart of a big military cantonment. 
To some extent, however, their haunts are governed by the 
seasons of the year. During the breeding-season they are seldom 
found near the habitation of man, unless by man one refers to the wilder 
dwellers of the hills and jungles ; but once their young are fledged and 
on the wing, they will be found anywhere where food is plentiful. 
Even the seasons, however, do not completely cut them off from 
civilization, for they have been found breeding in the Botanical Gardens 
in Calcutta, and a few may always be met with about the better wooded. 
surroundings of Barakpore and Serampore. 
Although, however, it may be found in many hilly districts and, 
indeed, up to some height in the foot-hills of the Himalayas, it is, on 
the whole, more a Plains Pigeon than a mountain one. In North Cachar 
and the Naga Hills it is only to be met with below 2,000 ft. and is rare 
even at that height, whereas in the broken ground where the hills and 
plains meet, it is decidedly more plentiful. In the Khasia Hills it has 
been shot, as a straggler only, up to 4,000 ft., and it is found all along 
the Terai in the foot-hills, and in the Darjeeling districts ascends as high 
as in the Khasia Hills, though, here again, only in exceptional cases. 
In Nepal, Scully found it common in winter at Nawakot, at about 
2,200 ft. elevation, but he did not find it at any time in the higher hills 
surrounding that valley. It must be noted also that Nawakot, though 
fairly elevated and well inside the Himalayas, is said by Scully to be 
very hot, damp, and well covered by forest, and to contain many 
banyan and pepul trees. 
In their favourite country, such as is composed of a certain amount 
of forest and scrub mixed with patches of cultivation and grass or 
bare land, their numbers do not seem to vary much all the year round, 
and they merely move locally according to where the supply of food 
is for the time being most plentiful. Thus in Chutia Nagpur, in the 
districts of Ranchi and Hazaribagh, they are always to be met with, 
provided one knows where to find their prevalent food growing. It 
was in the former of these two districts that I, personally, first made 
aquaintance with these most beautiful birds. A scattered Santhali 
village lay along the base of a rocky hill ; houses of thatch and bamboo 
being dotted here and there upon the stony bare soil, but almost 
