74 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
exceptional cases ;_ bill from gape about .95 in. ( = 24.1 mm.) and from front 
about .6 ( = 15.24 mm.); tarsus about .95 in. ( = 24.1 mm.). 
Weight from 64 to 74 or 8 oz. Cripps gives their weight as up to 
91 oz., but these must be exceptionally fat, big birds. 
Throughout its great range there is no constant variation in the size of 
this bird, and specimens I have received from the extreme south have had 
wings above the general average, although this, the average, in southern 
Burma may be a little less than it is in Nepal and the Himalayan Terai. 
The largest bird measured comes from Darjeeling, and the smallest from 
Manipur. 
Adult female, and male in first plumage. Differs from the adult male 
generally in being duller everywhere, but more especially about the head. 
The grey of the hind-neck is either absent or very faintly indicated, and 
there is never any orange-pink on the breast ; the under tail-coverts are duller 
and paler, the outer webs being almost entirely white, with the centres 
marked with dull sage-green. 
Colours of soft parts. “ Legs and feet deep coral red, claws pale brown; 
corneous tips of the mandible pale horny green, rest of the mandible and 
bare lores bright, pale smalt blue, skin of eyes duller and more leaden, irides 
—inner ring blue, outer coral red ” (Davison). 
Davison seems to distinguish two points of difference between the male 
and female in coloration of the soft parts, i.e. in the bill and outer ring of 
the iris. As regards these two points however, after examination of a very 
large number of birds alive and freshly killed, I can detect no differences that 
are not individual rather than sexual. The green tint of the bill is often 
present in both sexes, and the bill of the female is often as clear a smalt or 
lavender-blue as that of the male. The outer ring of the iris seems also 
to vary to exactly the same extent. It is possible, however, that the 
lavender-blue of the orbital-skin is brighter in the male than in the female 
in most cases. 
Measurements. The females average a trifle smaller than the males, 
the length of wing varying between 6.15 in. ( = 156.2 mm.) and 6.75 
( = 171.5 mm.), the average being about 6.5 ( = 164.7 mm.); the tail is 
generally much shorter, being but little over 6 in. ( = 152.4 mm.), though 
a specimen from Manipur in the British Museum collection has a tail measuring 
6.9 in. (= 175 mm.). Davison gives the weight as about 7 oz. 
The young male resembles the adult female, but partially acquires the 
grey on the hind-neck and the pink breast at the first autumn-moult, but 
not the dark under tail-coverts until the following spring. The long tail- 
feathers are not obtained until the bird is a year old, and these probably 
increase in length at each subsequent moult until the bird is three years old. 
Measurements. The wings of both young males and females in the 
autumn of the first year average little over 6 in. in length, and such birds, 
even if very fat, seldom exceed 6 oz. in weight. 
Distribution. Throughout the Himalayas and the broken country at 
their bases, from Kumaon in the west to Sadiya in the east, the mountain 
ranges of Assam south of the Brahmapootra, thence throughout the hill- 
ranges of Burma, Chin Hills, Shan States into the Malay States, whence I have 
a skin of a bird shot on the nest. A straggler only in the plains-districts of 
eastern Bengal, but not rare in the plains of the Brahmapootra and Surrma 
Valleys. 
