16 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
a long time trying to balance twigs in quite impossible positions. 
Nesting-sites, such as branches or boards put in convenient positions 
for them, never seemed to catch their fancy, and they appeared 
infinitely to prefer trying to make a foundation of twigs on a perch, 
which, invariably blew or tumbled off before it had advanced far 
enough to be of any use. 
They are great climbers, and if one is fortunate enough to get 
under a tree upon which they are feeding, without being noticed, he 
will see them clambering about from branch to branch, and from one 
twig to another, often leaning over to seize some special tit-bit, until 
they appear to be standing on their heads. They are not very shy 
birds, and many a time have I watched them for half an hour until 
some awkward movement of mine, or a sound of some kind, has startled 
them. Once frightened they all immediately sink into absolute 
silence, trusting to the way their green plumage and the green leaves 
blend to preserve them from molestation. Naturally, when much 
shot at, they soon become wild, and then the would-be observer must 
be quiet indeed if he can steal under a tree upon which they are 
feeding without driving them headlong out of it. Yet sometimes, 
even when a good deal fired at, they show great persistence in the 
way they cling to one place, or one set of trees, and it may take several 
evenings shooting before they finally make up their minds that the 
place is too hot for them. I remember one tree at which these birds 
continued to feed for some six or eight evenings and mornings, although 
they were more or less shot at every evening, and once or twice in the 
mornings as well. In this case the tree was an enormous single wild- 
plum standing isolated from all jungle in the middle of a tea- 
garden, and so lofty that the top of the tree was quite beyond shot. 
At first the birds fed all over this tree, and flighted into it quite low 
down, giving excellent shots as they approached; but the last day or 
two they altered their tactics, and arriving out of shot high overhead 
plunged into the tree at the very summit, and were off again like a 
flash when some unwise bird, flying lower than the rest, tempted us 
to have a shot. 
Swift as the flight of these birds undoubtedly is, it is not perhaps 
as quick as some of its smaller relations, such as Teron nepalensis 
and Osmotreron phayrei, but it is decidely faster than either of our 
Indian species of Sphenocercus. I have often noticed that, after firing 
