140 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
in myriads in company with the Alpine Swift. Here the sound of a 
gun being fired, or any unaccustomed noise, brings the birds out in such 
numbers that they have been likened to locusts or to a swarm of bees 
or white ants. 
If the Gaissoppa Falls however forms a good specimen of one of 
their wilder haunts, free from the presence and influence of man, on the 
other hand they will be found in almost equal numbers breeding in the 
walls and buildings of great cities and famous forts. Over a great 
portion of north-west India they are considered more or less sacred, 
and scrupulously looked after and protected, and in many other places 
where they are not actually held to be sacred, they are considered birds 
of good omen, and all shooting of them is strictly prohibited. In 
reference to this protection afforded to the Rock-Pigeon, Adam writes : 
* As the killing of the common Blue Pigeon is strictly prohibited, all 
through Rajputana, this species is very abundant. The native Govern- 
ments allow a certain quantity of grain to be given to the Pigeons 
each morning, and pay a man to feed them. Every morning at break 
of day flocks of Pigeons may be seen hurrying into Sambhar from the 
surrounding villages, and when the grain is thrown out to them the 
fluttering and fighting of the thousands of birds is a sight well worth 
seeing. When the grain has been consumed, each flock starts off for 
home.” 
Owing to the veneration in which they are held, many an unwary 
or unthinking shooter has got into trouble over these birds, and has 
unwittingly brought down on his head physical blows from the Hindu 
inhabitants, and moral ones from the benign Government who looks 
after the superstitions and prejudices of its Indian subjects with far 
greater eagerness than it pays to the safety and well-being of its 
European ones. 
Where the Pigeons are not considered sacred, and no European 
sportsman worthy of the name would intentionally hurt the religious 
feelings of any Indian, they afford splendid sport, for the Indian Blue 
Rock-Pigeon is not one wit behind his European cousin in power of 
flight and speed of movement. Away in the Himalayas, and in the 
wild and mountainous country across the borders, the sportsman can 
pursue his shooting amidst the finest of scenery, or the most desolate 
and forbidding of country, perhaps with the chance thrown in of being 
