WEDGE-TAILED GREEN PIGEON 83 



In the article in the Avicvltural Magazine attention is drawn to the habit 

 this Pigeon has of placing its nest under the protection of some bird more 

 capably pugnacious than itself. Mr. Dodsworth remarks : " Another curious 

 feature about these birds is that, as their eggs and young suffer largely from 

 the depredation of Jungle-Crows {Corvus macrorhynchiis), they sometimes 

 show considerable intel%ence in availing themselves during the breeding 

 season, of the protection afforded them by the more quarrelsome and powerful 

 species. Now the Dicruri are notoriously pugnacious during the breeding 

 season, never allowing Crows, Kites et hoc genus omne, ever to approach within 

 their ' spheres of influence,' and it is, therefore, not at all unusual to find 

 nests of the Kokla in close proximity to those of Drongos. The former 

 belonging to the nests are always allowed free access and regress to 

 the tree, but it is very different when a stranger shows himself in the 

 vicinity." 



This habit is, however, by no means confined to the Kokla, for it is recorded 

 of many Doves and Pigeons that they have built their nests and reared their 

 young in the same tree, or in close proximity to one in which is also the nest 

 of a bird of prey which under normal every-day circumstances would at 

 once make a meal of the Pigeons, parents and young. 



Mr. Dodsworth, in the article quoted, gives the incubation of the Koklas' 

 eggs as taking eighteen or nineteen days ; this seems to me an extraordinary 

 long period for such small eggs, and I fancy it will be eventually found to be 

 some two to four days less in anything but abnormally cold weather. 



The eggs cannot be distinguished from the Pin-taUed Green Pigeon either 

 in shape, size or texture. The average of a hundred eggs measured by myself 

 is 1.24 in. by .90 ( = 31.5 by 22.8 mm.), the range of variation in length and 

 breadth is practically the same as in those of the Pin-taU. 



This Green Pigeon is, more exclusively than most, a bird of evergreen- 

 forests, and wiU seldom, if ever, be found at any distance therefrom. It 

 is also essentially a hiU and mountain bird, though found throughout 

 the plains of eastern Assam, more especially close to the mountain- 

 ranges. In Cachar, Sylhet, Tipperah, and Chittagong it is practically 

 confined to the mountain-ranges running to the north of these districts, 

 and to the foot-hiUs and broken ground immediately adjoining them ; 

 though stragglers now and then may be shot in the cold weather 

 some distance therefrom. 



Hume, Jerdon, Blanford, and others consider the bird to be locally 

 migratory, and this appears to be correct in so far as its western habitat 

 is concerned, but to the east, that is to say from and including Nepal 

 to its extreme south-eastern limit in Burma, the bird is resident through- 

 out the year, perhaps in parts moving to some extent vertically with the 

 change in seasons. 



In Simla and the extreme west it ascends as high as 8,000 ft. at 

 least, in the hot weather, but it appears to visit this portion of its range 

 only during the breeding-season, and there is nothing on record as to 



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