22 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



belong to the latter species (chlorogaster) if it is really a species distinct from 

 phoenicopterus, which I am almost tempted to doubt." 



Further west and north it extends through Eajputana and the Pimjab, 

 except in the extreme west, and through the United Provinces, well into the 

 foot-hills of the Himalayas. 



Like the other subspecies this also is more of a plains than a mountain 

 bird, but it has been recorded from the Palnis, Shevaroys, and Neilgherries. 

 Davidson says that it is not common in Kanara, but that it is found there, 

 and that he has taken nests and eggs. 



Oates's remarks made in Nests and Eggs concerning the three subspecies 

 of Grocopus may well be quoted here, though I cannot personally say that my 

 experience, which as regards chlorogaster is confined to museum skins, 

 endorses all that he says : " The Bengal Green Pigeon, though found as a 

 straggler in the eastern portions of the Punjab and Rajputana, and somewhat 

 more commonly almost throughout the Central and North-Western Provinces 

 and Oudh, is really at home only in Bengal, and the tongue of Bengal-like 

 country that runs up under the Himalayas, westward to the Jumna ; 

 everjrwhere else, the so-called southern species C. chlorigaster is much 

 more abundant. 



"Following, I suppose. Dr. Jerdon, Mr. Wallace in his article on the 

 ' Pigeons of the Malay Archipelago,' gives C. phoenicopterus from northern 

 India and China, and C. chlorigaster from Ceylon and the Indian Peninsular. 

 As a matter of fact, C. chlorigaster is fully as common in upper India and 

 in most places far more common than C. phoenicopterus. In the North- West 

 Provinces both species associate in the same flock, C. chlorigaster being, as 

 far as my experience goes, most numerous. Out of sixty odd shot in three 

 days in the Etawah District in March, 1886, only nine belonged to the so-called 

 Northern Indian type, and seven shot near Hansi (Punjab) were all 

 C. chlorigaster. Eastwards of Bengal the present species shades into the 

 nearly allied C. viridifrons, and throughout Upper India innumerable forms, 

 more or less intermediate between it and C. chlorigaster, are to be met with. 

 I have seen specimens of G. phoenicopterus from the Malabar coast ; and 

 although I have not yet thoroughly examined the question, I suspect that, 

 different as are typical examples of the two races, they as little deserve specific 

 separation as Aegithina typhia and A. zeylonica." 



Nidification. As regards the nidification there is practically nothing 

 to add to the description already given of that of G. ph. phoenicopterus. As 

 a rule the birds build a very rough structure of small twigs and sticks 

 with no lining of any kind, and place it on a branch of some small sapling 

 at no great height from the groimd, and often in a conspicuous position, 

 though the material of which it is made does not quickly attract attention. 

 Sometimes, however, these Pigeons would appear to line their nests, for 

 Mr. Blewitt thus describes the nests he took at Hansie : " The nests were 

 placed on toon, neem, shishum, and keeker trees, mostly growing on the 

 canal bank, at heights of from fourteen to eighteen feet from the ground. 



" They are composed of shishum (Zizyphus) and keeker twigs, in some 

 cases slenderly in others densely put together. One or two were absolutely 

 without lining, but they were mostly very scantily lined with leaves, feathers 

 or fine straw. They varied from five to seven inches in diameter, and from 

 IJ to 3 inches in depth. They contained two eggs in every case, and some 

 taken at the end of May were quite fresh." 



Their principal breeding-season is from the end of March to the middle 

 of May, though a good many birds breed as late as the middle of June. Hume 



