78 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
Pigeon, nor have I ever heard of such, but they always form a certain 
percentage of any bag of Green Pigeon made in Assam and, in the hills 
above 4,000 ft., this and the Wedge-tailed bird are far the most common 
forms to be met with. 
In North Cachar at a place below Hungrum, at about 5,000 ft. 
elevation, I once had an evening’s very pretty shooting at these two 
species, getting eighteen couple of these, a few Grey-headed Pigeon and a 
single Treron. The birds were feeding on two clumps of trees divided by 
a shallow dip in which hill-rice had been grown, and where still stood a 
few of the creeping beans always grown by the Nagas beside the path- 
ways intersecting these plots of rice. Hiding by a clump of these creepers 
in the middle of the dip, I sent some Naga youngsters to either group of 
trees to keep the birds on the move, and thus had very sporting shots as 
the startled birds swept down the slopes towards me and made for the 
trees on the far side. For a couple of hours the birds continued to 
flight backwards and forwards until dusk fell with the usual startling 
rapidity of the East; the birds disappeared, and gathering the spoils 
we made our way home to camp. 
Hume found this species very common in Manipur, and has recorded 
the following interesting notes upon its habits : “ They are rather stupid 
birds. You mark a flock on to a tree; you get under it and walk round, 
peering up into the green depths. You know that there are at least 
twenty large birds above you, and you know by falling berries and 
twigs that they are hard at work feeding, but they keep quite quiet, 
and it is often quite impossible, even with binoculars, to see a single 
bird, embowered as they sit in leaves coloured precisely like themselves. 
Then you shout, and kick the trunk of the tree, and stand eager for a 
shot, but ‘they sit beside the nectar’ careless of the bolts below, 
and at last you adopt the only feasible plan, and that is to get someone 
to fire into the tree at a bird, if he has chanced to spy one, otherwise 
by guess, and take a brace as they fly off. These guess shots are by 
no means always thrown away, one such one day brought down four 
birds. Notwithstanding the firing of these barrels one or two are 
generally sure to return to the tree and settle on it before your eyes 
in less than a minute, when, of course, seeing them alight, it is easy 
to pot them. But in from ten minutes to half an hour the whole of 
the rest of the flock is sure to return, and though you drop a couple of 
them as they pass to the tree, the rest alight as if nothing had happened, 
