NICOBAR PIGEON 115 



Weight 1 lb. 4 oz. to 1 lb. 12 oz. These weights include the extremes 

 recorded for adult males by Davison, Hume, and others. 



Measurements. "Length 15.25 to 16.5; expanse 30 to 32.5; wing 9.8 

 to 10.6 ; tail from vent 3.1 to 3.82 ; tarsus 1.55 to 1.85 ; bill from gape 1.4 to 

 1.6 ; bill at front in adult 0.95 to 1.1 ; in the nestling and quite young birds 

 the frontal feathers do not advance nearly so far forward, and in these the 

 bill varies from 1.2 to 1.4 ; weight 1.25 to 1.75 lb." (Hume). 



Advlt female. Similar to the male, but the head, neck, upper-breast, 

 and hackles are generally decidedly more grey and no females in the Museum 

 CJoUection have the deep blue sheen visible in some of the males. The neck- 

 hackles are always shorter. 



Colours of soft parts. As in the male but the irides appear never to 

 become pure white as they do in old birds of that sex. 



Measurements. The same as in the male. 



Young male. Like the adult but having no hackles and the tail 

 concolorous with the rest of the upper-plumage and glossed above with the 

 same tint of green or copper. 



The white tail is assumed at the first autumn-moult and the neck-hackles 

 also then make their appearance, though they probably do not assume their 

 greatest length until the following year. The irides are a dull hazel-brown. 



Distribution. Extends from the Cocos and Andaman Islands, Nicobars 

 and islands of the Malay Archipelago as far as the Solomon Islands. It has 

 not yet been found on the Timor group. In the Nicobars it is extraordinarily 

 numerous and probably far more common in the Andamans and Cocos than 

 has hitherto been held to be the case. 



Nidification. Davison thus records the breeding of this magnificent 

 Kgeon : " Calaenas nicobarica builds a regular Pigeon's nest and always on 

 trees ; on Battye Halve where we found this bird in thousands, almost every 

 thick bushy tree contained several nests. I counted thirteen on one tree, 

 and I must have examined a couple of dozens of these nests ; we visited the 

 Island rather late : nearly all the occupied nests contained young and hundreds 

 of young had left the nests. I only succeeded in finding two eggs, one partially 

 incubated, the other ready to hatch off ; the former of these unfortunately 

 got broken on the Island, the latter I succeeded in preserving by cutting a 

 hole in one side and placing the egg in a small paper tray near an ants' nest. 

 The nests were, as I have mentioned above, regular Pigeons' nests, merely 

 a platform of twigs, very loosely and carelessly put together and without 

 lining of any kind, and in no single case contained more than the one young 

 or one egg. Many of the nests I examined contained young ones only a day 

 or two old, perfectly devoid of even down, and with closed eyes ; in fact, 

 exactly like the young of the domestic pigeon when first hatched. Other 

 nests contained young that flew from the nests on our climbing the tree. One 

 nest I found was only about ten feet, but the others ranged from twenty to 

 thirty feet from the ground and were always placed in thick bushy trees. 



" The egg which measures 1.84 in., is pure white and spotless ; the shell, 

 though compact is very finely pitted all over, and it has scarcely a trace of 

 gloss." 



Osmaston also found the bird breeding in South Sentinal Island, but 

 only in small numbers and on the first occasion he only succeeded in obtaining 

 two nests, which he describes as being exactly like those of the Pied Imperial 



I 2 



