32 COLUMBIA. 



Habits, fyc. The Eastern Stock-Dove is met with in India in 

 considerable flocks, feeding in small parties in the fields by day, 

 and roosting on trees at night. It arrives about November and 

 leaves India in March. 



1296. Columba leuconota. The White-bellied Pigeon. 



Columba leuconota, Vigors, P. Z S. 1831, p. 23; Gould, Cent. 

 pi. 59; myth, J. A. 8. B. xiv, p. 864 ; id. Cat. p. 234; Adams, 

 P. Z. S. 1858, p. 497, 1859, p. J87 ; Jerdon, B. I. iii, p. 471 ; 

 Stoliczka, J. A. S. B. xxxvii, pt. 2, p. 66 ; Stanford, J. A. S. B. 

 xli, pt. 2, p. 70; Elwes, P. Z. IS. 1873, p. 659 ; Hume 8f Benders. 

 Lah. to Yark. p. 274 ; Brookes, S. F. iii, p. 256 ; Hume, Cat. 

 DO. 790 ; Scully, S. F. viii, p. 340 ; Biddulph, Ibis, 1881, p. 92 ; 

 Scully, ibid. p. 584 ; C. H. T. Marshall, Ibis, 1884, p. 421 ; Sharps, 

 Yarkand Miss., Aves, p. 116; Salvadori, Cat. B. M. xxi, p. 249. 



" Snow pigeon " of Himalayan travellers ; Bvjul, Chamba ; Lho-peu- 

 rintiep, Lepcha ; Bya-den, Bhot. 



Coloration. Head all round very dark slaty grey ; neck all round 

 white, passing into the light earthy brown of the upper back, 

 smaller \ving-coverts, scapulars, and tertiaries ; rest of outer 

 surface of wing ashy grey, with three dark brown bands on the 

 secondaries and their coverts ; quills brown at the ends ; lower 

 back white ; rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail blackish brown, the 

 tail with a broad whitish cross-band just beyond the upper coverts 

 on the middle rectrices, but nearer the ends in the outer feathers, 

 subterminal and oblique in the outermost pair ; lower parts from 

 the throat white, tinged with greyish lilac on the Hanks, wing- 

 lining, and lower abdomen ; under tail-coverts pale ashy. 



Bill and claws horny black ; irides yellow ; feet bright light red 

 (Scully). 



Length about 13*5; tail 5; wing 9'5 ; tarsus 1-2; bill from 

 gape 1. 



Distribution. Throughout the higher Himalayas from. Gilgit to 

 Bhutan, at elevations of 10,000 to 14,000 feet in summer, but 

 descending to lower elevations in winter. To the north-east the 

 range of this bird extends to Kansu. 



Habits, <$fc. This Pigeon, in summer at all events, is usually to 

 be seen in flocks about rocky hill-sides. I found it irregularly 

 distributed in Upper Sikhim, common in places, rare in others at 

 the same elevation. I never heard its call, nor apparently has any 

 other observer, and its nidification appears not to have been 

 noticed, except that Lieut. Cordeaux says that he found it breeding 

 amongst inaccessible crags in the Ai Nullah, Kashmir, in August. 



Genus DENDROTRERON, Hodgson, 1844. 



This genus was proposed for a peculiarly-coloured Himalayan 

 Pigeon which appears to stand apart from all other Asiatic species. 

 An African form, D. arquatrix, is closely allied and congeneric, and 



