150 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
In the Altai and in Turkestan, they are reported to build nests of the regular 
Stock-Dove type in trees, mere platforms of twigs, many of which must have 
been torn from the living tree. These are well twisted, not merely laid criss- 
cross as is the case with the Rock-Doves’ nests, which are built on a firm 
foundation of rock or wall. On the other hand there is no lining. 
As far as my correspondents’ information goes, the nests are generally 
placed, quite unconcealed, upon clusters of twigs or a stout branch of some 
tree, poplars appearing to be the favourite one, and they are not tucked away 
amongst creepers or ivy, as the European Stock-Dove’s nest so often is. 
The eggs are, of course, pure white as usual, and only differ from those of 
the European bird in being a great deal smaller. The eggs in my collection 
from Altai average 1.50 in. by 1.16 in. ( = 38.1 by 29.4 mm.) and are probably 
not eggs of the real Eastern form; a single egg from Afghanistan, taken by 
the late Lieut. H. E. Barnes, measures only 1.35 in. by 1.03 in. ( = 34.3 by 
26.1 mm.)—this, an undoubted egg of the smaller Eastern bird, is probably 
typicai of what the egg should be in size. 
Throughout the greater part of India visited by the Eastern 
Stock-Dove, the bird is only a winter-visitor. In its extreme eastern 
limit, Behar, Inglis tells me that it is a visitor only during late December, 
January and February, but that it turns up regularly every year, and 
the natives know it well, having a distinct name for it. Reid does not 
appear to have noticed this Pigeon in the Lucknow district until March 
and April, when he says they appear “in vast flocks when the spring 
crops are ripening and being cut, and disappear in the beginning of 
May.’’ Hume says that he only once came across them in Sind, but 
unfortunately does not mention the month ; he adds that at some periods 
they are much more numerous than they were at the time he saw them. 
But even in the mountains they are to some extent migratory, 
for Ward records them as only passing migrants in Kashmir, and 
Whitehead says that ‘“‘ they migrate through Kohat in the latter half 
of April in small flocks.” 
Their habits probably do not differ in any way from that 
of the European bird. They are strictly arboreal normally, but 
descend freely enough to the ground when tempted thereto by ripe 
crops, and the wheat-growers in parts of the United Provinces 
declare them to be a pest which, if they are to be believed, is even 
worse than what our farmers at home complain of in connexion with 
the Stock-Dove or Wood-Pigeon of our own isles. 
Jerdon writes of this bird : “ It flies in pretty large flocks and affects 
trees. A correspondent of the Bengal Sporting Review states that he 
saw them in hundreds at Hansi in March, but they soon disappeared. 
They feed in the fields, morning and evening, and roost in the day 
(and I suppose in the night also) in trees, generally in the common 
