PURPLE WOOD-PIGEON 179 
plentiful. Bingham also found them by no means rare in the Sinzaway 
Forest Reserve, in Tenasserim, but everywhere else, though widely 
distributed, it is only to be found in very small numbers. 
I have never seen this Pigeon in flocks, nor have the numerous 
observers and collectors who have worked for me ever seen them except 
singly or in pairs, or perhaps a pair of old birds accompanied by their 
young one on its first leaving the nest. Colonel Tickell, however, the 
discoverer of the bird, found them in small parties of four or five along 
the banks of rivers shaded by large forest-trees in Singhbhum. 
This fine Wood-Pigeon has hitherto been considered to be entirely 
frugivorous, but this is by no means the case, as it eats grain of almost 
any kind quite as freely as fruit. When the rice has been harvested and 
the fields have all dried up, this bird is a regular visitor to those fields 
which border or intersect the forest-lands, and may be met with in the 
very early mornings or late afternoons walking about in the stubble 
picking up the rice which has been left behind. So also, the Sylhetees 
inform me, it frequents the fields of Indian corn and “ Bajra,”’ a species 
of millet, eating both these kinds of grain from the crop itself as it 
ripens or from the gleanings after the crop has been reaped. 
I do not think it is ever found feeding very far from forest, but 
it will traverse considerable extents of open country in order to get 
from one feeding-place to another, and I have had several reports sent 
me of birds killed in wide open plains whilst thus crossing it from one 
forest to another. It is a strong, swift flier, very direct in its move- 
ments and proceeding with the typical, rather deliberate wing-beats 
of the Common Wood-Pigeon. On the ground it is a decidedly active 
bird, moving about well and freely with action similar to, but less 
clumsy than, that of our European bird. 
I have never heard the call of this Pigeon, but Bingham describes 
it as ‘‘a soft mew, not unlike that of Carpophaga aenea, only not half 
so loud or booming.” 
The plumage of the Purple Wood-Pigeon is just as thick as that of 
the other species of the genus, whilst it seems to be also closer together 
and better attached to the skin, so that it offers an even greater resistance 
to shot than the others do, and it is consequently a very difficult bird 
to bring down at long range. On the other hand, when falling from 
a height it does not get so dreadfully knocked to pieces as do most 
Pigeons, and, consequently, good skins are more easily obtained, or 
rather, more frequently in proportion to the number of birds killed. 
N 2 
