CROCOPL'S 371 



Bengal the present species shades into the nearly allied C. viridi- 

 1'r<in!t, and throughout Upper India innumerable forms, more or 

 less intermediate between it and C. chloric] aster, are to be met with. 

 I have seen specimens of C. phcenicopterus from the Malabar coast ; 

 and though I have not yet thoroughly examined the question, I 

 suspect that, different as are typical examples of the two races, 

 they as little deserve specific separation as dfyithina tiphia and 

 &. zcylonica. 



The present race or species breeds from March to June. 



I have only myself found two of its nests, both in the Etawah 

 district (where I have taken at least a dozen of those of C. cldori- 

 yaster), both placed near the outside of large mango-trees, at heights 

 of from twenty to thirty feet from the ground, and in the vicinity 

 of water. 



The nests were slight twig-structures, laid upon two or three 

 thin branchlets, forming a horizontal fork, devoid of lining, and 

 perhaps 6 inches in diameter and 1 inch in thickness, with a 

 shallow central depression barely | inch in depth. Two is, I 

 believe, the full complement of the eggs. This species is very 

 common in the Dhoon and in the Kumaon Terai, but it remains 

 there all the year through and does not ascend the hills. 



From Seetapore Captain Cock remarked : " Makes a rough 

 stick-nest, rather high up, usually in a mango-tree. The nest is of 

 the usual type, but frequently placed on an excrescence, or where 

 some parasitic plant shoots out and thickens the foliage, so as to 

 render the bird more difficult to be seen. Lays two white eggs of 

 the usual type in May." 



Colonel Gk F. L. Marshall writes : " I have found C. plicem- 

 copterus breeding in the Mozuffernugger District in the winter (?) ; 

 but in Saharunpoor it breeds in May and June, building on trees a 

 small rude nest of twigs laid crosswise about twenty feet from the 

 ground. It lays two white eggs of rather broad oval shape. I 

 found a nest with one fresh egg on the 16th May, and another 

 with two fresh eggs on the 12th June. The old bird sat very close 

 on both occasions, not stirring from the nest till I was close up to 

 her, and then only moving out of reach and not leaving the tree. 

 One nest was in a shishum and the other in a mulberry-tree, both 

 on the canal-bank." 



Subsequently Colonel Marshall wrote : " The notice under my 

 authority that this bird was found breeding in Mozuffurnugger in 

 the winter is a mistake ; whether I (or the printers) am responsible 

 for it I do not know." 



Colonel McMaster, writing both of this species and of C. chlori- 

 yaster, says : " Green Pigeons are now (April and May) breeding 

 at Chicalda. The nest is apparently very carelessly constructed of 

 a few dead twigs placed haphazard at the end of a branch, but from 

 tli is cause it is exceedingly well concealed, as the bough selected 

 always appears to be a bare one, on which the dry twigs do not 

 attract attention." 



The eggs are of the usual Pigeon type, white and glossy, as a 



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