BURMESE GREEN PIGEON 19 



the only Pigeon he has met with in the dry zone, where, however, it is certainly 

 plentiful. 



Nidification. So far there is nothing on record about the breeding of 

 this bird, except the notes in Nests and Eggs by Gates and Bingham. The 

 former writes : " One egg was brought me by my collector with the female 

 bird. It was foimd in April, and there were two eggs. The nest was 

 reported to have been placed in a bamboo at a good height up one of the 

 branches." Bingham records : " I have only come across this fine Pigeon 

 in the Thaungyeen Valley. It is not uncommon on the banks of the Meplay, 

 where I found a nest as detailed below. 



" At the place where the Hteechara-choung flows into the Meplay stands 

 a grand ficus tree, which in March is loaded with fruit, and is the resort of 

 Hombills, Pigeons, Barbets, and innumerable other birds. On the 16th of 

 the above month I found, in a small ziziphus tree (Zizi-phus jujuba) growing 

 about twenty yards from this ficus, a nest of this Pigeon containing two 

 pure white eggs slightly set. The nest was the usual careless few twigs laid 

 across and across, and was not more than twelve feet from the ground. I 

 shot the female as she fiew off. The eggs measured 1.23 in. by 0.90 and 

 1.22 by 0.81." 



Like most Green Pigeons they are very close sitters, and are hard to 

 drive away from their nests even before the eggs begin to be incubated, and 

 when the eggs are very hard set, or the young recently hatched, they will 

 often sit imtil almost touched by the intruder. Harington remarks on this 

 in epistola : " I have only taken two nests, both at Taunyg3d during April. 

 The first was placed about ten feet up a small bushy tree growing on the side 

 of a steep hill, so that one could look into the nest from a very few yards off. 

 The old bird sat very tight, and as she was required for identification I had 

 a shot at her head, knocking it clean off, so that it hit my orderly who was 

 standing below : and for the moment he thought that I had missed the bird 

 and shot him instead. The nest contained one egg, the pair to which was 

 taken from the bird when the orderly was preparing the latter for his dinner." 



I have taken a fair number of eggs of this subspecies, and except that 

 I have found several in bamboo-clumps, and one or two in cane-brakes, 

 there is nothing to record about them that would not apply to nests of ph. 

 phoenicopterus. The nests in the cane-brakes were about five or six feet 

 from the ground, or rather from the surface of the water over which they 

 hung. The nests in the bamboo-clumps were about the same height up, 

 and well hidden amongst the numerous twigs and branches which then covered 

 the clumps. 



Eggs sent me by my native collector from Tennasserim were said to have 

 been taken from small trees or bamboo clumps. The latter were all in 

 fairly thick jungle, and it is possible that viridifrons, over part of its range, 

 is rather more consistently a forest-bird than pJioenicopterv^ which breeds 

 alike in the open, in forest, or in mango topes, and other clumps of trees. 



The eggs cannot be discriminated from those of G. ph. phoenicopterus, 

 being of the usual broad oval shape, or broad elliptical, pure, soft white, 

 with smooth surface and close texture. The eggs in my collection average 

 1.24 by .98 in. ( = 31.8 by 24.9 mm). 



In habits, flight, voice, etc., this bird does not in any way differ 

 from the other subspecies. Gates says {Stray Feath., Vol. Ill) : " This 

 species is common throughout the plains ... I have never received 



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