ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 293 



I have always found these birds fat, but never anything 

 like what they proved to be in Manipur, owing I suppose 

 to the great proportion of small jungle berries and fruits in 

 the Manipur forests even in the spring (February to June), 

 during which my visit was paid. 



Well, if I did not get many good skins I got many delicious 

 meals, for these birds kept till they are tender, and roasted 

 gipsy fashion in clay are simply perfect. I never before thought 

 much of Green Pigeons, unless they were jugged, but these were 

 quite out of the common way. 



They are rather stupid birds. You mark a flock on to a 

 tree. You get under it and walk round and round, peering up 

 into the green depths. You know that there are at least twenty 

 large birds above you, and you know by falling berries and 

 twigs that they are hard at work feeding, but they keep quite 

 quiet, and it is often quite impossible, even with binoculars, to 

 see a single bird, embowered as they sit in leaves coloured pre- 

 cisely like themselves. Then you shout, and kick the trunk 

 of the tree and stand eager for a shot, but " they sit beside 

 their nectar " careless of the bolts below, and at last you adopt 

 the only feasible plan, and that is to get some one to fire into 

 the tree at a bird, if he has chanced to spy one, otherwise by 

 guess, and take a brace as they fly off". These guess shots are 

 by no means always thrown away, one such one day brought 

 down four birds. Notwithstanding the firing of three barrels 

 one or two are generally sure to return to the tree and settle 

 on it before your eyes in less than a minute, when, of course, 

 seeing them alight it is easy to pot them. But in from ten 

 mjnutes to half an hour the whole of the rest of the flock is 

 sure to return, and though you drop a couple of them as they 

 pass to the tree, the rest alight as if nothing had happened and 

 so da capo. One afternoon at Matchi I bagged 13 without 

 moving, sitting in the shade under a stockade that commanded 

 a fair shot of all birds coming to and leaving a tree which 

 happened for the day to be the object of their devotions. 

 Their flight is smooth but not very rapid. They have a fine 

 mellow whistled call, louder, and not so sweet, but more varied 

 than that of spheniirus, and alike in the Eastern and Western 

 hills this call becomes one of the most familiar of the " Voices 

 of the Woods." 



I measured the first pair I shot, and may record the: details:— 



Length. Expanse. Tail. Wing. Tarsus, Bill from gape. WeigM. 

 $ ... 163 20-1 8-5 6'3 0-9 I'O 9*7 ozs. 



$ ... 143 190 7-1 635 0-9 093 8-1 „ 



Legs and feet crimson to deep coral red ; claws pale brown ; 

 corneous tips of mandibles pale horny green ; nares blackish ; 



