INDIAN BLUE ROCK-PIGEON 141 
potted by wily trans-frontier tribesmen, on the look out for bigger 
Pigeons than Blue Rocks. 
My own shooting has, however, been restricted to the vicinity 
of civilization, where the birds were frequenting deserted factories 
or the like, or else to the shooting of birds wending their way to and 
from the towns they frequent. Even under such circumstances, though 
the surroundings were unromantic, the sport was excellent, and on 
more than one occasion in a couple of hours, during the mornings and 
evenings, I have got thirty or forty couple to my own gun, and have 
finished with the comforting feeling that the toll taken of the flock 
left it apparently undiminished in numbers. 
One of our favourite places for these shoots was an old deserted 
indigo factory in the district of Nadia: the house and factory still 
stood upright, though ruinous, and all around were the remains of 
village-houses, fragmentary, yet each still affording shelter for a few 
pairs of Pigeons, the great bulk of which, many hundreds in number, 
dwelt in the bigger buildings. About a quarter of a mile from these 
buildings, or perhaps rather less, we used to stand with our guns, and 
shoot the Pigeons as they left in the early morning to feed, or returned 
in the evening to roost. Generally the birds came flying rather low, 
only some six to twelve feet from the ground, so that they were well 
screened from our view by the mongo topes, bushes, plantain trees, and 
clumps of bamboos which grow in luxuriance all round. Dodging in 
and out between these trees the birds would come swooping down upon 
us either singly or in twos or threes, affording only the quickest of shots 
in front of us, or rather easier shots as they rose in the air to avoid us 
and hurried away in the opposite direction. Now and then, of course, 
a bird would come sailing home well over the trees and give a simple 
chance, and, still less often, a flock of a dozen or so would come scurrying 
along so closely packed that a bad shot might miss the bird aimed at 
yet get another one, or, with luck, kill the bird aimed at and one or 
even two others as well. 
Taking one with another, however, we always considered one 
bird to every two cartridges quite fair shooting, whilst two birds to 
three was above the average. 
Shooting the birds as they fed all round about in the fields after 
the rice was cut, was much simpler, and a good shot should 
