BENGAL GREEN PIGEON 13 



This curious habit of flighting between their feeding-grounds and 

 their roosting or resting-places seems to be common to all Green Pigeons, 

 especially where they are very numerous. Sunrise, as a rule, finds 

 all birds on the wing coming steadily in one direction — towards the 

 jungle or clumps of trees upon which they are intent upon feeding 

 and for an hour or two they will come thick and fast ; then the birds, 

 unless they have been too disturbed to feed, begin to work back to 

 the ground where they rest during the heat of the day ; but the return 

 journey is never as continuous or as steady as is the first journey in 

 the morning. When the heat of the mid-day sun begins to lessen — 

 any time between three and four — the birds once more flight to their 

 feeding-grounds, not returning in the evening to roost until dusk 

 begins to fall, and then, as far as I have been able to ascertain, 

 always rettiming by some circuitous route and not by that which they 

 have come by. 



The regularity with which, year after year, at exactly the same 

 season, and for exactly the same period. Green Pigeons flight over 

 certain country, is most remarkable. Equally curious is the punctuality 

 displayed as regards their coming and going, and, provided their food- 

 trees are not destroyed, one may count almost to a certainty on seeing 

 each year the first fiights in the same week in the same month, at the 

 same time of day, and flying from and to the same direction. Of 

 course, if the trees upon the fruit of which the birds feed are cut 

 down, the following year a few flocks may turn up for a day or 

 two to seek their food, and then the place is deserted for good 

 and all. 



One of the prettiest pieces of shooting I have seen with these 

 birds, was one which entailed the dropping of aU birds within the 

 narrow area of a high embankment, on which ran a road through 

 swamps covered with dense cane-brakes. On either side of the embank- 

 ment grew high forest-trees, by which the birds were screened from 

 view until just as they topped them, so that a belated shot, if effective, 

 sent the bird falling straight into the swamp behind, where the dense 

 and prickly canes prevented all attempt to retrieve it. Equally, a 

 hasty shot fired at a bird one had the luck to spot earlier than usual, 

 lost it to the shooter in the swamp in front. 



Shooting one day on this embankment my host, the late Mr. F. 

 Holder, brought down sixteen birds in succession, many of these being 



