BENGAL GREEN PIGEON 13 
This curious habit of flighting between their feeding-grounds and 
their roosting or resting-places seems to be common to all Green Pigeons, 
especially where they are very numerous. Sunrise, as a rule, finds 
all birds on the wing coming steadily in one direction—towards the 
jungle or clumps of trees upon which they are intent upon feeding 
and for an hour or two they will come thick and fast ; then the birds, 
unless they have been too disturbed to feed, begin to work back to 
the ground where they rest during the heat of the day ; but the return 
journey is never as continuous or as steady as is the first journey in 
the morning. When the heat of the mid-day sun begins to lessen— 
any time between three and four—the birds once more flight to their 
feeding-grounds, not returning in the evening to roost until dusk 
begins to fall, and then, as far as I have been able to ascertain, 
always returning by some circuitous route and not by that which they 
have come by. 
The regularity with which, year after year, at exactly the same 
season, and for exactly the same period, Green Pigeons flight over 
certain country, is most remarkable. Equally curious is the punctuality 
displayed as regards their coming and going, and, provided their food- 
trees are not destroyed, one may count almost to a certainty on seeing 
each year the first flights in the same week in the same month, at the 
same time of day, and flying from and to the same direction. Of 
course, if the trees upon the fruit of which the birds feed are cut 
down, the following year a few flocks may turn up for a day or 
two to seek their food, and then the place is deserted for good 
and all. 
One of the prettiest pieces of shooting I have seen with these 
birds, was one which entailed the dropping of all birds within the 
narrow area of a high embankment, on which ran a road through 
swamps covered with dense cane-brakes. On either side of the embank- 
ment grew high forest-trees, by which the birds were screened from 
view until just as they topped them, so that a belated shot, if effective, 
sent the bird falling straight into the swamp behind, where the dense 
and prickly canes prevented all attempt to retrieve it. Equally, a 
hasty shot fired at a bird one had the luck to spot earlier than usual, 
lost it to the shooter in the swamp in front. 
Shooting one day on this embankment my host, the late Mr. F. 
Holder, brought down sixteen birds in succession, many of these being 
