INDIAN BLUE ROCK-PIGEON 143 



thunder than anything else I can think of, though it is always a soft 

 and rather melodious rumbling. 



They are, of course, excellent eating, but the wise man will take 

 the full-grown squabs from the nests when he can get them and leave 

 the parent birds. The young birds get enormously fat before they 

 leave the nest, and must sometimes weigh more than their parents, 

 being coated with a dense layer of yeUow fat. This skin and coating 

 of fat, however, should be removed before the birds are cooked, as it is 

 sometimes rather rank and coarse to the taste. When in camp our 

 favourite way of cooking them was to roU them up, feathers and aU, 

 into a ball of clay, and throw them into a fire of glowing wood-ashes. 

 AU the gross fat melted into the clay, and when this was broken open, 

 skin and feathers came away with the clay and the juicy young bird 

 inside was ready for the table. 



