BURMESE GREEN PIGEON 19 
the only Pigeon he has met with in the dry zone, where, however, it is certainly 
plentiful. 
Nidification. So far there is nothing on record about the breeding of 
this bird, except the notes in Nests and Eggs by Oates and Bingham. The 
former writes: “One egg was brought me by my collector with the female 
bird. It was found in April, and there were two eggs. The nest was 
reported to have been placed in a bamboo at a good height up one of the 
branches.” Bingham records: “I have only come across this fine Pigeon 
in the Thaungyeen Valley. It is not uncommon on the banks of the Meplay, 
where I found a nest as detailed below. 
“ At the place where the Hteechara-choung flows into the Meplay stands 
a grand ficus tree, which in March is loaded with fruit, and is the resort of 
Hornbills, Pigeons, Barbets, and innumerable other birds. On the 16th of 
the above month I found, in a small ziziphus tree (Ziziphus jujuba) growing 
about twenty yards from this ficus, a nest of this Pigeon containing two 
pure white eggs slightly set. The nest was the usual careless few twigs laid 
across and across, and was not more than twelve feet from the ground. I 
shot the female as she flew off. The eggs measured 1.23 in. by 0.90 and 
1.22 by 0.81.” 
Like most Green Pigeons they are very close sitters, and are hard to 
drive away from their nests even before the eggs begin to be incubated, and 
when the eggs are very hard set, or the young recently hatched, they will 
often sit until almost touched by the intruder. Harington remarks on this 
in epistola: “‘I have only taken two nests, both at Taunygyi during April. 
The first was placed about ten feet up a small bushy tree growing on the side 
of a steep hill, so that one could look into the nest from a very few yards off. 
The old bird sat very tight, and as she was required for identification I had 
a shot at her head, knocking it clean off, so that it hit my orderly who was 
standing below: and for the moment he thought that I had missed the bird 
and shot him instead. The nest contained one egg, the pair to which was 
taken from the bird when the orderly was preparing the latter for his dinner.” 
I have taken a fair number of eggs of this subspecies, and except that 
I have found several in bamboo-clumps, and one or two in cane-brakes, 
there is nothing to record about them that would not apply to nests of ph. 
phoenicopterus. The nests in the cane-brakes were about five or six feet 
from the ground, or rather from the surface of the water over which they 
hung. The nests in the bamboo-clumps were about the same height up, 
and well hidden amongst the numerous twigs and branches which then covered 
the clumps. 
Eggs sent me by my native collector from Tennasserim were said to have 
been taken from small trees or bamboo clumps. ‘The latter were all in 
fairly thick jungle, and it is possible that viridifrons, over part of its range, 
is rather more consistently a forest-bird than phoenicopterus which breeds 
alike in the open, in forest, or in mango topes, and other clumps of trees. 
The eggs cannot be discriminated from those of C. ph. phoenicopterus, 
being of the usual broad oval shape, or broad elliptical, pure, soft white, 
with smooth surface and close texture. The eggs in my collection average 
1.24 by .98 in. (= 31.8 by 24.9 mm). 
In habits, flight, voice, etc., this bird does not in any way differ 
from the other subspecies. Oates says (Stray Feath., Vol. III): “ This 
species is common throughout the plains . . . I have never received 
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