SPECKLED WOOD-PIGEON 159 



Their flight is very powerful and swift, and even birds rising from 

 the ground, though they did this with the clatter and noise made by 

 all Pigeons when thus rising, seemed to get the pace up extraordinarily 

 quickly. 



For the table they seemed to me much the same as the native 

 domestic Pigeon, perhaps a httle drier and more closely grained in the 

 meat. As, however, the birds I shot were wanted as specimens, all 

 those eaten were skinned first, and the coating of fat being missing 

 from the dish may have affected the flavour one way or the other. 



Gbntjs PALUMBUS. 



The genus Paluwhus, which contains the true Wood-Pigeons, 

 differs from Dendrotrercm in external structure much as that genus 

 itself differs from Golumha. The tail is stiU longer, proportionately, 

 than in Dendrotreron, being about two-thirds the length of the wing, 

 and the wing itself is more rounded than in either of the other two 

 genera, having the first quiU about equal to the fourth. The tarsus, 

 also, is shorter and more feathered, and the feet are broader and more 

 arboreal in their character than in Columba. 



Outwardly the Wood-Pigeons differ somewhat in type of coloration 

 from the Rock-Pigeons, having no wing-bars, though they have a bar 

 on the outer feathers of the tail. 



Salvadori, as akeady noted, placed Blanford's genera — Columba, 

 Dendrotreron, Palumbus, and Alsocomus — ^in the one genus Columba, 

 but the divisions as made by Blanford seem both reasonable and 

 convenient, and divisions in classification being primarily made for 

 convenience in working, I retain Blanford's genera. 



In India we have but one species as here restricted, and that in 

 fact is but a subspecies of Palumbus palumbus, the European Wood- 

 Pigeon. 



