192 INDIAN PIGEONS AND DOVES 



Nidification. Almost wherever found the bird is resident and breeds, 

 and its breeding-season practically lasts for the greater part of the year, 

 though the principal breeding-months in the north-east of India and in Burma 

 would seem to be April and May, and in southern and Central India January 

 to March. 



In North Cachar, where the bird was not very common, I have seen 

 their nests containing either eggs or young in every month from March to 

 November, and have no doubt that they occasionally breed in the other months 

 also. They certainly have two broods in the year and many probably have 

 three. The second brood may be reared either in the old nest or in a new 

 one, in most cases perhaps the latter. I have often noticed when nests are 

 taken late in the year that a short search often produces another and older 

 nest in the immediate vicinity, sometimes in the same bush or cane-brake ; 

 at the same time, I have more than once known two broods reared in the 

 same nest. Their nests may be found in bushes, cane-brakes, small saplings, 

 or clumps of bamboo, generally fairly low down between 5 and 10 ft. from 

 the ground, now and then higher up than this, and still more rarely 3 or 4 ft. 

 only from it. 



There has been little or no attempt to conceal such nests as I have found 

 myself, or which have been pointed out to me. A few, from their positions 

 in the interior of a thick bush, bamboo-clump or dense cane-brake, may 

 have been hard to detect at first, but the majority were in quite con- 

 spicuous positions, often on a bare branch or cluster of twigs, and quite 

 visible yards away. 



The normal nest is no better made or shaped than is usual with this 

 family ; the twigs and short bents of which it is composed are roughly, though 

 fairly strongly, interlaced so that they form a rough circular platform some 

 six or seven inches in diameter by an inch or two in depth. As a rule the 

 material is so scanty that the eggs or young can easily be seen through the 

 bottom of the nest. When a second clutch is laid in the same nest as the 

 first, there are always a few feathers and a good deal of the yellow down 

 from the previous young adhering to the nest, and the materials, as a whole, 

 get matted, and present a more solid appearance than is the case with 

 fresh nests. 



Irwin, it should be noted, described a nest of this bird as being " neatly 

 constructed of twigs, circular in shape, with the egg cavity somewhat deep, 

 certainly unlike the platform nest described by Capt. Hutton." 



The bird is a very close sitter, and I have stood within a yard or two 

 of a nest with eggs upon which the bird has sat, its eyeS steadily fixed 

 upon me, but making no attempt to fly off until my hand was actually 

 raised towards the nest. Both birds take an equal share in all the labour 

 appertaining to a family : the male collects the material for the nest which 

 the female constructs, both attend to the incubation, and the male does 

 at least as much of the feeding as the female. 



The eggs are invariably two in number, and of the usual description 

 of Doves' eggs, i.e. white in colour and broad ovals in shape, the ends equal. 

 The texture is fine and close and there is a fair gloss on the surface. 



A very large series of these eggs which have passed through my hands, 

 or are now in my collection, vary in length from 1 in. ( = 25.4 mm.) to 

 1.37 in. ( = 34.8 mm.) and in breadth from .82 in. ( = 20.3 mm.) to .97 in. 

 ( = 24.6 mm.). The egg measuring 1.37 by .97 in. is one of a pair of quite 

 abnormally large eggs, and eliminating these, the average size of eighty 

 eggs is 1.12 in. ( = 28.4 mm.) by .88 in. ( = 22.4 mm.). 



