50 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



yellow ; the inner-secondaries the same, but gradually changing to the same 

 colour as the back on the innermost, which are also broadly edged with 

 yellow on the outer webs ; greater-coverts black with broad margins of pale 

 king's yellow, median-coverts green with the same border on a few of the 

 largest and outermost feathers. Winglet black ; lower surface of wing, 

 flanks, and axillaries grey. 



Colours of soft farts. " The legs and feet vary from purplish pink to 

 lake red, the irides have an inner ring, at times not very apparent, of deep 

 blue, and an outer one of salmon pink, the eyelids bluish or pale plumbeous. 

 The bill is pale bluish, the basal portion darker." (Hume.) 



The legs and feet are often almost a coral-red with paler soles, and 

 claws a pale horny-brown. The inner ring of the iris varies from bright pale 

 ultramarine to a deep blue, and the outer part from vivid salmon-pink to 

 a deep crimson-pink. The bill is very often more of a pale green than a 

 pale blue, more especially in the central portion. The eyelids and bare orbital 

 skin are a bright lavender-blue. 



Adult female. Differs from the male in having no lilac and orange bands 

 across the breast ; in having the blue-grey of the upper parts duller, darker 

 and less in extent, and in having the under tail-coverts pale dull cinnamon, 

 much mottled with dull greenish on the inner webs, and with the whitish- 

 yellow on the outer webs still wider. The amount of green on the vent and 

 tibial plumes also, is perhaps greater. I cannot see that the back, as is 

 sometimes alleged, is either more or less green in the female than it is in the 

 male. 



Colours of soft parts. Similar to the same parts in the male, but the eyelids 

 and orbital skin are somewhat more livid and less bright in tint. 



Young birds of both sexes in this, as in other Green Pigeons, have the 

 eyes a watery pale brown, but acquire the double-coloured iris in the first 

 autumn-moult, though it is not even then quite so vivid in colour as in the 

 adult. The feet also are duller coloured and with less lake, and the eyelids 

 and orbital-skin are of a livid colour. 



Measurements. Length about 11.5 in., tail 3.75, wing 6.25, tarsus .85, 

 bill from gape .95. Females rather less " (Blanford). 



The huge series of this Pigeon in the British Museum Collection 

 (excluding birds from Ceylon and Madras) give wing -measurements which 

 range from 6.08 m. ( = 154.4 mm.) to 6.70 ( = 170.2 mm.) This latter, 

 however, is an extraordinarily large bird, and the next biggest is only 6.55 in. 

 ( = 166.2 mm.). The difference between the sexes is not much, and the 

 biggest females far exceed in size the smallest males, but on an average the 

 female has a wing not quite .25 in. ( = 6.35 mm.) shorter than that of the male. 



Assam and Burmese birds are, on the whole, larger than those from 

 Bengal and China, but they well overlap one another and cannot be divided 

 as can the Ceylon and Southern Indian birds. 



A very careful examination of the series of this Green Pigeon in the 

 British Museum Collection shows, as has already been noted by Blanford 

 and others, that in the extreme south of India and Ceylon there is a much 

 smaller race which appears to be well worthy of subspecific rank. Un- 

 fortunately, amongst the birds I have been able to examine, though there 

 are a fair number from Ceylon there are very few from Madras ; but from 

 the material available it would appear that the drop in size between the 

 northern and southern races is very sudden. 



