ASHY-HEADED GREEN PIGEON 35 
the birds seem to be more or less gregarious though, perforce, they 
have to break up into comparatively small flocks. At the same time, 
I do not remember any month of the year in which I have not seen 
them in small flocks, as well as singly or in pairs. Nor are these small 
flocks composed of young birds or unwilling bachelors and spinsters, 
for birds examined have been proved to be fully adult, whilst both 
sexes have been seen or shot in the same flocks. The note of the Ashy- 
headed Green Pigeon has been described as being less musical 
than that of some of the other Green Pigeons, but I cannot 
say that I have noted this to be the case. It may be somewhat less 
varied and with a smaller range of notes, but to me it sounds as soft 
and melodious as any of its cousins, except perhaps bisincta, the 
Orange-breasted Green Pigeon. 
When they are quite undisturbed and have no idea that anyone 
is watching or listening to them, the members of a flock will continue 
to whistle to one another as they feed, and the volume of sound thus 
made is very sweet and full. Although, as I have said, naturally 
shy birds, they very soon become used to being watched, and if not 
fired at or interfered with in any way, soon lose their shyness and 
become very tame. In one of the police-stations in the Dibrugarh 
district some enormous pepul trees grow in the compound, two of 
their number overhanging the station-building itself. Here the birds 
are so accustomed to people constantly moving about below them, 
that they take absolutely no notice and, as they are never fired at 
in the compound, the birds swarm here, even when the trees are not 
in fruit, when firing is going on anywhere near. 
I do not think that the Ashy-headed Green Pigeon drinks 
regularly morning or evening, but I have noticed more than once these 
birds drinking about noon, when they have ceased feeding and were 
about to take their mid-day rest. 
Invariably, when noticed on these occasions, the birds drank by 
climbing down the cane-brakes or creepers which stood in swamps, 
until they could reach the water, when they drank their fill, and then 
clambered back to a more convenient perch. They rest much in the 
middle of the day in cane-brakes, which form dense masses of jungle 
in the morasses at the foot of the hills, though they also frequent tall 
tree-forest for the same purpose. 
Like all their relations, I am sorry to say that they are very 
D2 
