BLUE HILL-PIGEON 145 
Bill .60 in. to .66 in. (= 15.2 mm. to 16.7 mm.) at front, and about 
.95 in. (= 24.1 mm.) from gape ; tarsus 1.0 in. to 1.1 in. (= 25.4 to 27.9 mm.). 
Weight 8.8 oz. to 9.75 oz. (Scully). 
Adult female. Similar to the male. 
Colours of soft parts. The same as in the male. “ Irides brick-red, 
dark straw colour at pupillary margin.” (Scully.) 
Measurements. The female would seem to average decidedly smaller 
than the male, the average wing-measurement being only 8.73 in. (221.7 mm.) 
although the biggest females have a wing up to 9.2 in. ( = 233.6 mm.). 
Weight 9.2 oz. (Scully). 
Young bird of the year. Generally the whole head, neck, and shoulders 
are a dark slate-grey with no gloss of any kind, the breast is a dark grey-brown 
with narrow rufous-brown edging to the feathers, but the depth of the colour 
varies a good deal in individuals. The upper-parts are almost invariably 
a less pure grey, being tinged with vinous, and the wing-coverts and scapulars 
are the same, with narrow pale edges to the feathers. The feathers of the 
rump are also browner than in the adult bird and have very narrow borders 
of white. 
Colours of soft parts. rides pale watery-brown, feet dull red, and the bill 
horny-brown. 
In very young birds the pale margins to the feathers of the wing extend 
to the feathers of the back also. 
Nestling, in down. Dull, pale buffish-yellow. 
Distribution. Blanford thus records the range of the Blue Hill Pigeon: 
“Central Asia from Gilgit to south Siberia and Corea; common in Tibet 
and some of the drier valleys of the higher Himalayas. This Pigeon has 
been recorded from Gilgit, Dras, Leh, and the upper Indus Valley generally, 
Lahaul, Upper Kumaon and Tibet north of Sikhim, but specimens labelled 
Kashmir, Sikhim and Darjiling in the British Museum Collection probably 
come from more northern localities.” Ward, however, reports them as 
common in Kashmir, and says that it is “ plentiful on the Ladak road, at 
high altitudes of the side valleys of Kashmir, and in most of the northern 
parts.” It undoubtedly also occurs not uncommonly in the higher, barer 
parts of Sikhim, and might therefore possibly straggle into Darjiling. It 
has also been found in Nepal on the high bare uplands which are beyond the 
forest line and are very rocky. 
In 1893 Rothchild and Hartert divided this Hill-Pigeon into two sub- 
species (R. and H., Orn. Monatsh. 1893, I. p. 41) ie. Columba rupestris 
rupestris from the Amur region, type from Dauria, and Columba rupestris 
pallida from the Altai Mountains. Dr. Hartert, in epistola to me, writes : 
“The two forms are quite distinct and there can be no doubt whatever about 
them. C.r. pallida is generally lighter, especially on the abdomen and under 
tail-coverts, and the middle of the abdomen is almost pure white, not slaty- 
blue as in C.r. rupestris.” Since then Zarudny has again divided a third 
subspecies from south Russia, and Swinhoe long ago gave the Chinese form 
the name of leucozonura. 
Nidification. There is very little on record about the nesting of the 
Blue Hill-Pigeon; Marshall mentions, in the Jbis for 1884, having found 
them breeding in the high cliffs in the Panji Valley, Upper Pherab, but gives 
no details of nests or eggs. Bailey likewise gives no description of these but 
L 
