CIOTSTAMON-HEADED GREEN PIGEON 47 



specimens has a very faint rufescent tinge. Under tail-coverts pale buff, 

 the centres and bases more or less marked with green. 



Colours of soft parts. " Iris with an outer ring of pink and an inner ring 

 of ultramarine. The legs and feet are paler and pinker than in the male." 

 (Davison.) 



Measurements. " Females are rather smaller than the males " (Blanford). 

 The series in the British Museum do not show that there is much difference 

 in size between the two sexes. The average wing-measurement is 5.62 in. 

 ( = 142.5 mm.), and there are several adult males with wings smaller than 

 any of the females. 



Young male. Young males are like the females, but assume the adult 

 plumage, to some extent, at the first autumn moult, completing it in the 

 spring. The maroon and cinnamon of the upper-parts are only partially 

 assumed in the autumn, giving the young bird in its first winter-plumage a 

 very patchy appearance. 



Distribution. Blanford records this as only a winter- visitor to 

 Tenasseritn, where Davison obtained it at Bankasoon in December and 

 January. It is, however, most probably a resident in Tenasserim, for my 

 collectors found it there in March, when they obtained nests and eggs, though 

 they reported it as very rare. 



Outside our Indian limits it is found in Cochin China, the Federated 

 Malay States, and Malay Archipeligo to Celebes and the Phillipines. 



Nidification. The only note I can find on the breeding of this Green 

 Pigeon is that by A. L. Butler in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History 

 Society. He there records : " I took a pair of eggs of this handsome Pigeon 

 in Pahang in May. The nidification, which is, of course, exactly similar to 

 that of other Green Pigeons of the genus, is not described in Vol. IV of the 

 Birds in the Fauna of British India, so perhaps it may be worth while 

 to record the dimensions of the eggs. They are rather short and broad, "both 

 measuring 1.1 to 1.32 by 27/32, the shell of the usual Osmotreron texture and 

 gloss. 



" The nest was placed in a low tree in a little sandy Island in the Pahang 

 River, on which I landed to try for a jungle fowl. The male bird flew out 

 of the tree close to the nest, and I shot him before I noticed it." 



The first pair of eggs I ever received of this bird was taken by Mr. W. A. T. 

 Kellow in Simpang, Federated Malay States, who kindly sent me two pairs, 

 together with portions of the skin of the parent birds. The nests were taken 

 on the 11th May and 14th June respectively, and each contained two eggs, 

 the former hard-set and the latter fresh. The nests were said to be the usual 

 doves' platform of sticks and twigs placed in a small sapling, low enough 

 down to be reached by hand, and situated in heavy forest near the banks 

 of a stream. 



Other nests and eggs received after these appear to be similar in all 

 respects, but were taken in the months of January and February, and, in 

 epistola, Mr. Kellow writes that he believes these two are the principal 

 breeding -months in that part of the Malay Peninsula. 



My series of eggs vary in length between 1.06 in ( = 26.8 mm.) and 1.16 

 ( = 29.3 mm.), and in breadth between .80 in. ( = 20.3 mm.) and .90 

 ( = 22.8 mm.), averaging 1.12 in. ( = 28.4 mm.) by .86 ( = 21.7 mm.). 



They are, of course, pure white and of the usual short ellipse shape, and 

 do not differ in grain or texture from those of other Green Pigeons. 



