142 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
get three birds out of four fired at unless the birds had been much 
worried, when they naturally got very wild, and it was difficult to get 
anywhere near them. 
Over the greater part of its range, the Blue Rock-Pigeon is resident, 
breeding, as already stated, in practically every month of the year; 
but in some places it would seem as if they were partially migratory, 
or as if they resorted to one kind of country to roost and breed in, and 
quite another kind in which to feed. Thus Rattray found them “ breeding 
in hundreds in a cliff near the fort [Thull] about the middle of April 
they all disappeared.” Whitehead, in his notes on the birds of Kohat 
and the Kurram Valley, says that he found them in large flocks from 
August to April. Perreau also seems to have found them in Chitral 
only from December to March. Other observers in Kanara have 
noted that, though it retires to the hill-ranges for the night, it feeds 
during certain seasons of the year in the low coast country. 
It is principally a grain feeder, but will also eat many kinds of 
fruits and berries, and also young shoots of certain plants and crops. 
I found that it was very partial to very young shoots of the mustard- 
plant, and villagers have told me that where the birds are numerous 
they often do considerable damage to the mustard crops, and in the 
wheat-growing countries they are an unmitigated nuisance, the more 
so that, in being sacred it is not permitted to do anything more than 
attempt to drive them away—an attempt which is very seldom effective, 
for the birds soon learn that they have nothing really to fear from the 
beating of drums and banging of bamboos on the earth. 
Wherever they are protected they become incredibly tame and 
have, literally, often to be pushed to one side by the native passer-by, 
though they will not allow of so near approach by the strangely-clad 
European. When they are much shot at, however, they become very 
wary, and it is then almost impossible to get within gunshot of them 
when feeding in the open, and even in flight-shooting the shooter must 
be suitably dressed, or more or less hidden by grass or bushes, if he 
wishes for a successful shot. 
Their notes are exactly the same as those of the European form, 
and need no description. They are not noisy birds individually, but 
when they are in great numbers the rise and swell of the constant 
cooing that goes on is indescribable—more like a distant rumbling of 
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