458 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



Bill dull lake-red at the base, slaty at the tip ; orbits 

 lake red ; irides red-brown in examples from the South of 

 India, hoary-grey in Himalayan specimens ; legs dull lake-red. 

 Length 18 to 20 inches ; extent 26 to 30 ; wing 9^; tail 6| to 7 ; 

 weight 11 fb. 



The female is a little smaller than the male, and the color of 

 the upper parts less bronzed. One measured by Tickell, Avas 17 

 inches long, with the wing 9. 



This fine Pigeon is found in the South-east Himalayas, and in 

 the mountain regions of Malabar, in Coorg, the Wynaad, the 

 Western slopes of the Neilgherries, and probably all along the 

 higher ranges of the Ghats, although not recorded by Col. Sykes. 

 It is also found in the Khasia Hills, and in the mountains of 

 Arracan, and possibly in other hill regions of Burmah. It is 

 placed as distinct from C. badia of Java by Bonaparte and Gray, 

 but appears to approach that species very closely. I at one time 

 was inclined to consider the Southern species distinct from the 

 Himalayan one, and the fact of the irides being colored differently 

 would favor this supposition, but without further examples of 

 both than are available in the Museum Asiatic Society, I cannot 

 separate them. In general, it is an exclusive inhabitant of the 

 mountain zones, from 2,000 feet to nearly 6,000 feet. I have killed 

 it in Wynaad, in Coorg, on the Khoondah Ghat of the Neilgherries, 

 and in Sikim, above Kursiong, where Major Tickell also procured 

 it. It associates, in general, in small j)arties, or in pairs, frequenting 

 the loftiest trees, and feeding on various fruits. Its note is some- 

 thing similar to that of the last, but still deeper, louder, and more 

 groaning. Tickell calls it a deep, short and repeated groan, 

 woo tooo 1000. 



During the hot weather, from the middle of April to the first 

 week in June, when the rains almost invariably commence on 

 the Malabar Coast, large numbers of this Pigeon descend from 

 the neighbouring mountainous regions of Coorg and Wynaad, to 

 a large salt swamp in the neighbourhood of Cannanore, and there 

 not only eat the buds of Ariceitnia, and other shrubs and plants that 

 affect salt and brackish swamp?, but also (as I was credibly in- 

 formed by several native Shikarees, to whom I was first indebted 



