76 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
and is by no means rare in Cachar, Sylhet, Tipperah, and Chittagong 
in the flat country below the hill-ranges. 
Personally I have not noticed much, if any, variation in the 
elevation of their habitat connected with the seasons, and the birds 
seemed quite as common at 6,000 ft. in the North Cachar and the Khasia 
Hills in December and January as they were in the hot weather months, 
April to August. So, also, they are just as common in the foot-hills 
and the broken country round about in the hottest weather as in the 
coldest. The actual plains they probably do desert, during the 
breeding-season, for the forests of the foot-hills, but even this is doubt- 
ful, for one of my collectors told me that he found several pairs breeding 
in the forests and swamps of the Hylakandy district, and Inglis also 
obtained birds in the same place during the rains. In Burma, how- 
ever, Harington and other observers have only recorded this beautiful 
Pigeon from the hills, and it does not appear to be found in the dry 
zone in central Upper Burma at any time of the year. 
This Pigeon is certainly not as gregarious as some of its nearest 
relations. Many flocks consist of only some half-dozen birds, and 
whilst often they are to be seen in twos or threes, they are very seldom 
found in groups exceeding a score. At the same time very large 
numbers of these birds collect together at any place where there is 
attraction in the way of food, and on one occasion at Laisung, in 
North Cachar, at some 4,000 ft. elevation, I think there must have 
been literally thousands of these Pin-tailed Pigeon and the Wedge- 
tailed Pigeon collected to feed on a species of ficus which was then, in 
the month of May, in full fruit. It being the breeding-season a few 
birds only were shot for the pot, but for a distance of some three miles 
above and below my camp and on either side of the Laisung stream, 
the birds simply swarmed, and the numbers one could have bagged 
need only have been limited by the powers of the shooter to tramp 
up and down and fire off his gun. 
Once the kind of fig in season had been eaten, the birds all dispersed 
—and ten days later, when I returned over the same route, no 
Pigeons were to be seen beyond the few who habitually resided in 
that particular spot, and the trees which had been brick red with the 
masses of small ripe figs, were stripped of the very last and most 
unripe berry. 
I have already remarked on the curious similarity in the actions 
