PREFACE. 
My reasons for writing a volume upon our Indian Pigeons and Doves 
are several, and I trust will be deemed sufficient by my readers. 
In the first place, there has as yet been no book published which 
deals with these most beautiful birds from the point of view of the 
Sportsman and Field-Naturalist as well as from that of the Scientific 
or Museum-Naturalist, and as this is a gap in the records of our 
Indian Avifauna which badly needs filling, I may be forgiven for trying 
to bridge it. Skins—as skins—are, without doubt, full of interest, 
and especially so, perhaps, when the person studying them is more or 
less intimate with the life-histories of the birds themselves ; but Pigeons 
are well worthy of study in ways other than by dry skins. To the 
Field-Naturalist they are birds full of interest; to the Aviculturist 
they are birds more charming and worthy of culture than has hitherto 
been generally admitted, and to the Sportsman they offer an object 
well worthy of attention, for he must have a quick eye, a sure hand, 
and considerable perseverance and patience before he has mastered 
their habits and is able to find them and, when found, bring them 
to bag. 
Books referring to Pigeons and Doves, of course, abound; but 
they are difficult of access and expensive to purchase. Volume XXI 
of the Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, by Count Salvadori, 
is the standard work on these birds; but one does not want twenty- 
seven volumes of a work, at a cost of something well over fifty 
pounds, for the sake of Pigeons only. 
In the same way, Blanford’s Vol. IV of the Avifauna of British 
India deals with this family very thoroughly ; but the volume is one 
of four, and contains much matter besides such as refers to the birds 
we are now considering ; and, moreover, it tells us but little about the 
Pigeon itself, except as a museum-specimen. Jerdon contains rather 
fuller accounts, but, wonderful book as this still is, it was written 
nearly sixty years ago, and cannot but be somewhat out of date, as 
well as being difficult to obtain. Hume’s volumes of Stray Feathers 
have odd notes full of interest when one can find them, and in the same 
