174 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 
Osmaston, writing in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 
says that he found this Pigeon “ fairly common in the dense oak and chestnut 
forests between 7,000 and 8,000 ft. I found two nests in small trees about 
6 ft. and 10 ft. respectively above the ground on the 21st June. They were 
of the ordinary platforms of sticks, and contained each one young bird. 
These I brought up by hand, and they are now denizens of the Calcutta 
Zoological Gardens.” 
The eggs seem to me to be rather small for the size of the bird : my biggest 
egg measures 1.56 by 1.18 in. ( = 39.6 by 30 mm.), and the smallest 1.46 
by 1.06 in. ( = 37 by 26.9 mm.). 
Two of the eggs are curiously coarse in texture for a Pigeon’s egg, and 
are probably abnormal in this respect as two others in my collection are as 
smooth as any other Pigeon’s or Dove’s egg, though with a very stout and 
strong shell. 
In Sikhim this Pigeon seems to be comparatively plentiful, and 
Osmaston has found it to be “ fairly common” round about Darjiling, 
where it kept to the dense oak and chestnut forests. Elsewhere, all 
over its range, it appears to be very rare, though this may be partly due 
to its very shy, retiring habits. 
In North Cachar it only occurred as a quite rare straggler ; some 
years I would see it half-a-dozen times during the whole twelve months, 
at other times a couple of years would pass without a single bird being 
noted. Inthe Naga Hills, adjoining the North Cachar Hills, the Darjiling 
Wood-Pigeon was less uncommon, but there the ranges run from 6,000 
to 10,000 ft., whereas in North Cachar there are few over 6,000 ft., an 
elevation which is too low for the bird to frequent in any numbers. 
In the Khasia Hills I never came across it, and I do not think it ever 
enters these hills, nor would the pine-forests, the usual forest over 
4,500 ft., hold out any inducement to the birds to visit them. 
From the little I saw of them in North Cachar, I came to the con- 
clusion that when not nesting they were the hardest of all the Pigeons 
to get close to. They used to sit in the denser foliaged parts of the 
oak-trees, never moving or uttering a sound until they thought I had 
got too near to be safe, when they quietly dropped, if I may use 
such an expression, out of the tree on the side opposite to me and wended 
their way to safety through the tree-tops. Even their flight was 
singularly quiet, and beyond an occasional “‘flip-flap ” of their wings as 
they started, or again as they made some extra effort in twisting and 
turning in and out of the trees, I heard no sound. Never did I hear 
them make the loud clapping with their wings indulged in by most 
Pigeons at the start of their flight, this probably because they descended 
