36 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
quarrelsome and pugnacious birds, and it is quite impossible to keep 
two captive birds in the same cage during the breeding-season, for 
the males will fight until exhausted or seriously injured, whilst the 
females are often nearly as bad. I have never myself succeeded in 
getting them to breed in captivity, but they are such easy birds to 
tame and do so well in aviaries, that the matter should not be difficult. 
In the Calcutta Zoological Gardens these Pigeons used to pair freely, 
and would go as far as partially building nests, but the few eggs they 
laid were casually dropped about anywhere but in the nests. 
