ALSOCOMUS. 35 



Length about 17; tail 6'75; wing 10'25 ; tarsus 1'25; bill 

 from gape !!. 



Distribution. This Wood-Pigeon replaces the European bird 

 (P. torquatus), which only differs in having white instead of buff 

 neck-spots, in Central Asia and North- western India. It breeds 

 in the North-western Himalayas from the Afghan frontier to 

 Kumaun and in the higher hills (wherever there are trees) of 

 Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and Southern Persia, and it visits Kan- 

 dahar, Quetta, the Punjab, and occasionally Sind in winter. 



Habits, $c. Wood-Pigeons are chiefly found about high trees, on 

 which they perch at intervals and roost, but they teed on the 

 ground on grain, seeds, acorns, young shoots, &c. They collect in 

 large flocks and migrate extensively, and, in some countries, 

 regularly. The call is of four syllables, low and moaning. This 

 species breeds in May and June, and lays the usual two white 

 eggs on a small loosely-constructed platform of small twigs in a 

 bush or tree, often at no great height above the ground. Eggs 

 measure about 1*6 by 1*1. 



Genus ALSOCOMUS, Tickell, 1842. 



There are several Indian non-migratory Pigeons that resemble 

 Palumbus in structure, but that have the habits of Oarpophaga. 

 They are forest-haunting, fruit-eating birds, and they lay a single 

 egg in all cases in which the nidification is known. Some have 

 been referred to Palumbus, others to lanthoenas, and one has 

 generally in India been regarded as a Carpophaga, though its 

 structure is that of the Columbines. All are distinguished by dark 

 coloration and by the prevalence of changeable metallic gloss, 

 usually green or amethystine, on a great part or the whole of the 

 plumage. Although some differences of plumage exist and the 

 group might be subdivided, there is sufficient agreement to justify 

 the retention of the whole under Tickell's generic name Alsocomus, 

 which would in this case comprise lanthcenas. Besides the species 

 here enumerated several Pigeons of the Malay Archipelago, Japan, 

 and even of Oceania belong to this genus. 



Key to the Species. 



a. A patch of black feathers with white tips 



at back of neck. 



'. Lower parts grey A. elphinstonii, p. 06. 



b' , Lower parts lilac A. torrinff tonics, p. 36. 



b. Glossy buff feathers, black at base, ex- 



tending round neck A. pulchricollis, p. 37. 



c. No patch of white- or buff-tipped feathers 



on neck. 



c'. Mantle chestnut A. piwiceu*, p. 38. 



d'. Mantle blackish A. palumboides, p. 39. 



D2 



