124 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



This charming httle Dove is essentially a forest-bird and, more- 

 over, one confined almost entirely to damp evergreen-forests and their 

 vicinity, though it may be met with less often in deciduous forest and 

 bamboo-jungle. It is extremely partial to the banks of the smaller 

 forest-streams and to mossy tracks through heavy forest. Working 

 along the former, the fisherman wiU often see it running along the bank 

 in front of him, finally making off as he gets too close, but seldom 

 flying far and often pitching again within a couple of hundred yards 

 or so. In the same way the traveller along the forest-tracks may see 

 a little dark bird, or perhaps a pair, get up almost at his feet as he rounds 

 some comer, and flit away down the path with incredible speed — 

 dark and sombre-looking unless a flash of sunhght catches it, when it 

 gleams hke a jewel until once more the shadows embrace it and it 

 vanishes from sight. Probably, however, once out of sight it has again 

 dropped to earth, and the same procedure may go on for some half 

 a dozen times within the next half mile before at last it dashes aside 

 into the forest and makes its way back to its original haunts. It is 

 a very conservative Httle bird, and day after day a pair or a single bird 

 may be put up at the same spot if visited at the same hour, and in spite 

 of its powers of flight it does not seem to range over much country. 

 Almost any place where there is a " salt-lick," by a river-bed or in 

 fairly thick evergreen-forest, is sure to be much frequented by these 

 Doves, and the Cacharies have a saying to the effect that : elephants 

 and deer like salt-licks, buffalo and gour must resort to them at 

 times, but that the Emerald Dove dies if kept away from them more 

 than a day. 



They are very active on the ground, and though normally they 

 move about in a rather sedate and graceful manner, they are capable 

 of great speed when disturbed or when roused to extra exertions by a 

 flight of white ants. Naturally, like all their family, they are entirely 

 vegetarian except for this one lapse, but they catch and eat termites 

 greedily, and I have watched them so feeding until I have wondered 

 where they could possibly put all they had caught. But the termite 

 is food for everything — ^mammalian, avian, or reptilian, and any Pigeon 

 or Dove will eat them as readily as do squirrels, dormice, and other 

 vegetarian mammals. 



The Emerald Dove is very fond of wild strawberries, and I often 

 used to see them eating these on the village-paths in the North Cachar 



