124 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
This charming little Dove is essentially a forest-bird and, more- 
over, one confined almost entirely to damp evergreen-forests and their 
vicinity, though it may be met with less often in deciduous forest and 
bamboo-jungle. It is extremely partial to the banks of the smaller 
forest-streams and to mossy tracks through heavy forest. Working 
along the former, the fisherman will often see it running along the bank 
in front of him, finally making off as he gets too close, but seldom 
flying far and often pitching again within a couple of hundred yards 
or so. In the same way the traveller along the forest-tracks may see 
a little dark bird, or perhaps a pair, get up almost at his feet as he rounds 
some corner, and flit away down the path with incredible speed— 
dark and sombre-looking unless a flash of sunlight catches it, when it 
gleams like a jewel until once more the shadows embrace it and it 
vanishes from sight. Probably, however, once out of sight it has again 
dropped to earth, and the same procedure may go on for some half 
a dozen times within the next half mile before at last it dashes aside 
into the forest and makes its way back to its original haunts. It is 
a very conservative little bird, and day after day a pair or a single bird 
may be put up at the same spot if visited at the same hour, and in spite 
of its powers of flight it does not seem to range over much country. 
Almost any place where there is a “ salt-lick,’ by a river-bed or in 
fairly thick evergreen-forest, is sure to be much frequented by these 
Doves, and the Cacharies have a saying to the effect that: elephants 
and deer like salt-licks, buffalo and gour must resort to them at 
times, but that the Emerald Dove dies if kept away from them more 
than a day. 
They are very active on the ground, and though normally they 
move about in a rather sedate and graceful manner, they are capable 
of great speed when disturbed or when roused to extra exertions by a 
flight of white ants. Naturally, like all their family, they are entirely 
vegetarian except for this one lapse, but they catch and eat termites 
greedily, and I have watched them so feeding until I have wondered 
where they could possibly put all they had caught. But the termite 
is food for everything—mammalian, avian, or reptilian, and any Pigeon 
or Dove will eat them as readily as do squirrels, dormice, and other 
vegetarian mammals. 
The Emerald Dove is very fond of wild strawberries, and I often 
used to see them eating these on the village-paths in the North Cachar 
