THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 263 



Davison remarks :— ?•" The Nicobar Imperial pigeon is very- 

 numerous all over the Nicobars, much more so than its congener 

 is at the Andaman s. In habits it is much the same, being 

 found singly, in pairs, or small parties ; its deep low coo may 

 be heard resounding through the forest all day. They breed 

 in February and March; on the 17th February I found a 

 nest on the island of Trinkut ; it was built in a cocoanut palm, 

 and was about twenty feet from the ground ; as usual with 

 pigeons and doves it was simply a platform of dry twigs very 

 loosely put together, and was built on a dried-up fruit branch, 

 which is itself merely a mass of dry twigs ; it contained one 

 large white egg. It is my belief that the normal number of 

 eggs laid by this pigeon is only one ; this is certainly the 

 case with Calaenas nicobarica, for I must have examined at 

 least a couple of dozen nests, and in no single case was there 

 more than one egg or one young one, and I have found that 

 one egg was the usual number laid by Palumbus Elphinstonii, 

 and I was informed by several convicts that they usually 

 obtain only one young one from the nests of the present species, 

 and from those of C. bicolor.'''' 



The egg measures 1*9 in length by l - 39 in breadth. 



780 quat.— Carpophaga palumTboides, Hume. 

 (2.) 



This species was fully described, Stray Feathers, 1873) 

 p. 302. 



Lord Walden remarks : — " Classed by Mr. Hume as a 

 Carpophaga, but clearly belongs to the columbidce, it has twelve 

 rectrices," and Lord Walden accordingly places it under 7cm- 

 thcenas, Reichenbach, the type of which is Columba ianthana of 

 Temminck, PI. Col. 503. Now in the first place it seems 

 to me undesirable to unite this present species with ianthcena 

 and metallica, which belong, it seems to me, to a totally different 

 sub-group of pigeons. The present species is a regular Car- 

 pophaga in habits, mode of feeding and the like, and whatever its 

 tail may be cannot possibly, I should have thought, be included 

 in the same minimum sub-division as ianthoena and metallica. 



But now as regards the tail, which Lord Walden says has only 

 twelve rectrices, I rather fear that Lord Walden's tale (or if you 

 like it better tail) was incomplete ; my specimen undoubtedly had 

 only twelve tail feathers, but then the first on the one side, and 

 the third on the other appear to me to be wanting, and I 

 presumed and do so still that the tail when perfect will prove 

 to have fourteen feathers. We were unfortunate, we got only 



