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Palumbus elphinstonii (Sykes).
The Nilghiri Wood - Pigeon.

Palumbus elphinstonii (Sykes), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 465; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 786.

The Nilghiri Wood - Pigeon breeds in many of the better - wooded localities of the Blue Mountains, at elevations of 5000 feet and upwards.   They build the usual stick - nest  -  a very slight platform placed on some stout bough of a large tree in the midst of dense forest.

The breeding - season appears to extend from March to July, and they lay a single egg only.

Writing from Kotagherry, Miss Cockburn says : -“The nest of the Nilghiri Wood - Pigeon resembles that of ah Pigeons and Doves in the careless manner in which a few sticks are put together. On high trees in dense woods this bird prepares the abode for her young, and chooses a projecting bough, as if she had some thought for the safety of the egg she lays (I say egg, for I have seen four nests of the Nilghiri Wood - Pigeon : two had one egg in each, and the other two contained one young one in each). I have also remarked that only one Pigeon is noticed near the nests, which are to be found in the month of April."

Subsequently Miss Cockburn herself sent me, and Mr. Davison brought me, eggs taken in June. The latter remarks : -" This Wood - Pigeon breeds on the Nilghiris and its slopes, breeding rather late in the year. The nest, which is merely a platform of dried twigs, is usually placed in some thick thorny bush or mass of cane from about 12 to 20 feet from the ground. I believe that this Pigeon, like the other large Fruit - Pigeons, only lays one egg; occasionally it may lay two, but if so this must be, I think, quite exceptional."

Mr. Rhodes W. Morgan, writing from South India, says  : -" It breeds in March and April in the dense woods of the Nilghiris, depositing its single glossy - white egg on a loosely constructed platform of sticks some 8 or 10 feet from the ground."

Captain Horace Terry says, writing of the Pulney Hills : - " Common on most of the big sholas. Obtained a nest with one egg at Kukal on the 17th May."

The eggs are very perfect ovals, usually broad, sometimes slightly elongated. They are, of course, pure white, spotless and glossy, and absolutely indistinguishable bom very large eggs of G. intermedia, though, of course, considerably larger than the average of these.

The specimens I possess vary from 1.46 to 1.55 in length, and from 1.07 to 1.2 in breadth.

(31) ALSOCOMUS ELPHINSTONII (Sykes).

THE Nilgherries WOOD-PIGEON.

Ptilinopus elphinstonii Sykes, P.Z.S. 1832, p. 149; Jerdon, Madr. J.L.S., XII p. 11. Columba elphinstonii Blyth, J.A.S.B., XIV p. 866 ; Jerdon, III. I. Orn., pi. 48 ; Salvadori, Cat. B.M., XXI p. 304 ; Sharpe, Hand-List, I p. 71 ; Oates, Cat. Eggs B.M., I p. 91. Carpophaga elphinstonii Gray, Gen. B., II p. 469.Palumbus elphinstonii Blyth, Cat. B.M.A.S.B., p. 233 ; Gould, B. Asia, VI pi. 57 ; Jerdon, B.I., III p. 465 ; Hume, Nests and Eggs, ITI p. 498 ; Fair- bank, Str. Feath., IV p. 262 ; Bourdillon, ib., IV p. 404; Fairbank, ib., V p. 408; Ball, ib., p. 418 ; Hume, ib., VIII p. 109 ; id., Cat. no. 786 ; Vidal, Str. Feath., IX p. 74 ; Butler, ib., p. 419 ; Davison, ib., X p. 407 ; Macgregor, ib., p. 440 ; Terry, ib., p. 479; Barnes, B. Bom., p. 288; Oates, in Hume's Nests and Eggs, 2nd ed., II p. 347; Davidson, J.B.N.H.S., XII p. 62. Alsocomus elphinstonii Blanf., Av. Brit. I., IV p. 36; Betham, J.B.N.H.S., XIV p. 620.

Vernacular Names.   None recorded.

Description.—
Adult male. Head above, nape, and sides of neck dove-  grey, faintly glossed with iridescent emerald-green ; fore-head, sides of  head, and lores the same, but paler and tinged with pink ; hind-neck with a large patch of black feathers tipped white and with tiny metallic edging below these tips, the lowermost feathers of this black-and-white patch glossed with green ; back brick-red brown, gradually getting more brown and less red towards the rump ; the upper-back, and base of hind-neck brilliantly glossed with metallic copper-purple, showing green in places in some lights ; the purple gloss extends down the back in a lesser degree, but not on to the scapulars. Rump, upper tail-coverts and tail blackish-brown, the feathers of the rump obsoletely edged with metallic green. Wings dark brown, in very fine specimens the whole of the visible portions of the smaller wing- coverts are the same colour as the back and the other wing-coverts, except the greater primary-coverts, are edged with the same. In some specimens also the scapulars and innermost secondaries are powdered with this colour, giving them a general reddish hue. Chin and centre of throat whitish, neck below and breast ashy-grey or grey tinted with vinous, and with all the feathers edged with metallic emerald-green, pale and sometimes scarcely visible ; on the abdomen the grey becomes paler and more ashy or vinous, and on the flanks, axillaries and under aspect of the wing a good deal darker; under tail-coverts brownish-ashy.

Colours of soft parts.   " Corneous part of bill and claws horny-white; fleshy part of bill, eyelids, legs and feet pink; irides pale yellowish-red to red-brown " (Davison).   " Eyelids, legs and feet lake-red " (Davison).

" Bill brick-red at base, yellowish tip, legs and feet pinkish with white marks " (Miss Cockburn).

Measurements.
Total length 15 in. to 17 in. ( = 381 to 431.8 mm.) ; wing from 8.05 in. to 8.80 in. ( = 204.4 to 223.5 mm.); tail 6 in. to 7 in. ( = 152.4 to 177.8 mm.); bill at front .65 in. ( = 16.4 mm.), and from gape about 1.15 in. ( = 29.1 mm.); tarsus about 1 in. ( = 25.4 mm.). The average length of wings is about 8.40 in. ( = 212.3 mm.). "Weight 10 to 12 oz." (Davison).

Davison gives the whig-measurements as 8.3 to 9 in., and the tarsus as 1.08 to 1.15 in. These measurements are, of course, taken from fresh skins or living birds.

Adult female. This has hitherto been described as similar to the male, but it would seem as if it never became quite so brick-red on the wings and lower-back as old males do, and the amount of metallic gloss is also, perhaps, rather less.

Colours of soft parts are the same as in the male.

Measurements.
Females are decidedly smaller than males, the length of wing in the series in the British Museum Collection varying in length between 7.7 in. ( = 195.5 mm.) and 8.20 in. ( = 208.2 mm.), with an average of 7.85 in. ( = 199.9 mm.) exactly. Tail 5.75 in. ( = 146 mm.) to 6.5 in. ( = 155.1 mm.) and other measurements in proportion.

With the exception of one bird from the Nilgherries, sexed by Miss Cockburn, there is no other female over 8.05 in. ( = 204.4 mm.), and this is therefore quite an abnormally big bird.

Young male. Like the adult, but browner and less red above and with the metallic colours undeveloped. The patch at the back of the neck is also less black than in the old bird. The wing-coverts, scapulars and innermost secondaries have dull narrow fringes of rufous, quite different in colour to the red of the adult bird.

Distribution.
Confined to the Hill tracts of western southern India, from Kanara south to Cape Cormorin, the Nilgherries, Palni Bills, Brahma- gerries, and Wynaad. Colonel Sykes found it, though rare there, in the Deccan Ghats. Captain Blaxland also informed Ball that he had met with this Pigeon on the Mahanadi and Godavery Rivers, but his identification has never been confirmed.

Nidification.
Hume, in Nests and Eggs, says that the Nilgiri Wood-Pigeon breeds in many of the better wooded localities of the Blue Mountains (the Nilgherries) at elevations of 5,000 ft. and upwards, and both Miss Cockburn and Davison took nests at and above this height, and they have been taken in the same hills by Messrs. Cardew, Rhodes, W. Morgan, Howard Campbell, and others. In the Palni Hills their nests have been found by the last mentioned gentleman, Macgregor and Captain Horace Terry, and I have received an egg from the Shevaroys. Mr. J. Stewart informs me that he has found them breeding in the higher ranges of hills in Travancore, and that he has taken an egg there.

Miss Cockburn describes the nest as resembling " that of all Pigeons and Doves in the careless manner in which a few sticks are put together. On high trees in dense woods this bird prepares the abode for her young, and chooses a projecting bough, as if she had some thought for the safety of the egg she lays. (I say egg, for I have seen four nests of the Nilgiri Wood- Pigeon ; two had one egg in each, and the other two contained one young one in each). I have also remarked that only one Pigeon is noticed near the nests."

Other observers agree with Miss Cockburn in her description of the  est and the number of eggs laid, but all disagree with her description of the   site, and doubtless her nests were somewhat abnormal in this  respect, as these Wood-Pigeons generally make their nests either in tall, thickly-foliaged bushes or in small saplings more often under than over 15 ft. from the ground. Hume would appear to have received a fair number of their eggs from different collectors, but in the British Museum Collection there are only three of them left. They are, of course, pure white as usual, and are fairly glossy, but the texture is not so fine and close as in some Pigeons' eggs. In shape they are rather broad ovals, practically the same at either end. The Museum eggs, my own, and three others I have been enabled to measure vary between 1.42 in. ( = 36 mm.) and 1.53 in. ( = 38.8 mm.) in  length,and between 1.05 in. ( = 26.6 mm.) and 1.18 in. ( = 30 mm.) in  breadth.

The breeding-season appears to commence in March, as Miss  ockburn took her nests with young in April, and Mr. Morgan reports finding nests in that month also. Cardew, Howard Campbell and Captain Terry took their eggs in May, and on the other hand Davison did not take its eggs until June.

All writers agree that they only make their nests in the interior of very thick forests and are consequently difficult to find, nor does the parent bird seem to render any assistance in disclosing the place in which its nest is located.

This species is essentially a Wood-Pigeon in its habits. Jerdon says that " on the Nilgherries, it frequents sholas or dense woods, singly, or in small parties of five or six, feeding on various fruits and birds, and occasionally on small snails, to procure which it descends to the mossy banks, and I have now and then seen it on the ground outside a wood. I frequently found some small Bxdimi in the crops of those I examined. Colonel Sykes says it is a rare bird in the Deccan, and only found in the dense woods of the Ghats."

It has been stated that the genus Alsocomus differs from Palumbus, the true Wood-Pigeon, in that it is more frugivorous, but as a matter of fact even the European Wood-Pigeon is very fond of fruit; admittedly its food in the mam consists of beech-mast, acorns and grain, but it will on the other hand greedily eat almost any soft fruit it can get at.

In London, where the Wood-Pigeon is now very common, it enters gardens freely and any gooseberry or currant bush which is not carefully netted is soon stripped of all the ripe fruit, the unripe being left by this discriminating bird for a future meal. I have also seen them feeding on crab-apples, cherries, and plums, swallowing the latter whole when possible, and when not possible tearing them to pieces, their apparently fragile bills behig amply strong enough for this purpose.

Davison records of the Nilgiri Wood-Pigeon that it is not uncommon in the woods and slopes of the Nilgherries, though he did not meet with it either in the Wynnad or Mysore. He adds : "It moves about a good deal, and a shola that may be full of them one week, will not contain a single specimen of them the following week ; this is due, I fancy, to the prevalence or otherwise of berries. I too have noticed the fact mentioned by Jerdon of their feeding on the ground outside the forests. I found them very numerous in March in the forests about Meddivuttam, and procured a good number of specimens."

It is said to be a shy, wary bird, and where it is much shot at it soon becomes impossible to get near enough with a gun.

The flight is much the same as that of the European Wood-Pigeon, very powerful and fast, and they are also said to generally fly at a good height when passing from one feeding-ground to another.

During the cold weather they are nearly always found in flocks —rarely singly or in pahs ; but all field-naturalists who have watched these Pigeons agree that the flocks are invariably small, and a party of a dozen birds seems quite exceptional.

The only note I have concerning its call is one contained in a letter from a friend, in reply to a query, who stated that " it is on the whole a very quiet bird, and I cannot distinguish its coo in any way from that of its European cousin. Its soft, sweet notes may sometimes be heard in the sholas very early in the morning, as the birds call to one another before flighting to their feeding-grounds, and again in the evenings, when the birds cany on a soft murmuring conversation amongst themselves before settling off to sleep."