36 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



quarrelsome and pugnacious birds, and it is quite impossible to keep 

 two captive birds in the same cage during the breeding-season, for 

 the males will fight untU exhausted or seriously inJTired, whilst the 

 females are often nearly as bad. I have never myself succeeded in 

 getting them to breed iu captivity, but they are such easy birds to 

 tame and do so well in aviaries, that the matter should not be difScult. 

 In the Calcutta Zoological Gardens these Pigeons used to pair freely, 

 and would go as far as partially building nests, but the few eggs they 

 laid were casually dropped about anywhere but in the nests. 



