INDIAN BLUE ROCK-PIGEON 143 
thunder than anything else I can think of, though it is always a soft 
and rather melodious rumbling. 
They are, of course, excellent eating, but the wise man will take 
the full-grown squabs from the nests when he can get them and leave 
the parent birds. The young birds get enormously fat before they 
leave the nest, and must sometimes weigh more than their parents, 
being coated with a dense layer of yellow fat. This skin and coating 
of fat, however, should be removed before the birds are cooked, as it is 
sometimes rather rank and coarse to the taste. When in camp our 
favourite way of cooking them was to roll them up, feathers and all, 
into a ball of clay, and throw them into a fire of glowing wood-ashes. 
All the gross fat melted into the clay, and when this was broken open, 
skin and feathers came away with the clay and the juicy young bird 
inside was ready for the table. 
