28 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
The amount of orange on the breast is very variable and there are two 
specimens in the British Museum collection, both from southern Burma, 
which have none at all, although they appear, otherwise, to be fully adult 
birds. The grey of the head is also somewhat variable, in some specimens 
being less sharply defined from the surrounding parts and also more dull 
and less pure in tint, as well as more restricted in area. 
“Length 10.75 to 11.75; expanse 18.46 to 19.5; tail from vent 3.37 
to 4.0; wing 6.0 to 6.25; tarsus 0.82 to 0.95; bill from gape 0.82 to 1.0; 
weight 4.5 to 6 ozs.” (Hume). 
The huge series of this bird which I have measured shows that this little 
Green Pigeon varies very considerably in size, wing-measurements ranging 
from 5.65 in. ( = 143.5 mm.) to no less than 6.5 ( = 164.7 mm.), the wing- 
measurement of a specimen from Sylhet. I can trace no geographical 
connexion with this variation in size: the largest and smallest birds being 
found in the same areas. The average of over 300 wing-measurements is 
6.10 in. (= 154.9 mm.); the measurements of bill and tarsus vary to the 
same extent in proportion. 
Two exceptionally large males shot in the Dibrugarh District of Assam 
each weighed fully 7 oz., pulling the scale well down at that weight. The 
great majority of birds do not, however, weigh much over 5 oz. 
Colours of soft parts. Bill bluish-white, the base somewhat darker and 
the lower mandible still paler; legs lake-red, the posterior portion always 
paler, in old birds the edges of the scales showing white; iris pink with an 
inner circle of pale blue, orbital-skin bluish or pale slate-grey. In young 
birds the two rings of colour in the iris are pale and indefinite and the orbital- 
skin is almost white; nestlings have the iris a pale brown. “ Irides usually 
with an inner ring of bright blue, and an outer ring of salmon or buffy pink, 
sometimes they are a rosy pink, at others reddish yellow.” (Davison.) 
Female has the chestnut-maroon of the upper-parts replaced by green ; 
there is no sign of any orange on the breast, which is concolorous with the rest 
of the plumage, and the under tail-coverts are white or buffy-white with 
greenish bases and centres. I cannot find that there is any difference between 
the sexes in size; the biggest birds have been mostly males, but so have 
the smallest, the range in length of wing for 180 females being between 
5.82 in. ( = 144.8 mm.) and 6.30 (= 159.10 mm.), and the average of the 
same number 6.09 in. ( = 154.68 mm.). 
The young male is like the female, but assumes a certain amount of maroon 
on the upper-parts, more especially on the lesser wing-coverts, in the autumn 
moult of the first year. 
Birds in their first plumage have the grey of the head duller than in the 
adult, and the yellow margins to the wing-feathers narrower and paler in 
colour. The young birds are also very much smaller than adults, and do 
not attain their full size until they are a year old, that is to say, until the 
spring of the year succeeding that in which they are hatched. 
Distribution. The Ashy-headed Green Pigeon is found in Lower 
Bengal from about as far south as the latitude of Calcutta, though rare there, 
becoming more common in the eastern Bengal districts of Maldah, Barisal, 
Dacca and Mymensingh, and thence north and east extremely plentiful 
throughout the Assam Valley, Cachar, Sylhet, Chittagong, Comillah, and 
Noakhali. 
In the Khasia Hills, Manipur, Looshai Hills, and the hill-ranges of 
