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Carpophaga bicolor (Scop.).
The Pied Imperial Pigeon.

Carpophaga bicolor (Scop.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 781 quat.

Captain Wimberley, to whom I owe the single egg of the Pied Imperial Pigeon that I possess, remarks  : -" I obtained this egg on Trinkut Island (Nicobars) during the first week of February. The nest was built of sticks and twigs, and was very similar to that of our English Wood - Pigeon. There was only one egg in the nest, and it was much addled. The nest was placed in a low mangrove - tree overhanging the river, and the old bird flew off the nest as I drew near to it, but I failed to shoot it."

The egg is of a longish oval shape, a good deal pointed towards the small end, pure white, and tolerably glossy. It measures 1.78 by 1.25.

Mr. Davison remarks : -"Although I did not obtain the nest or eggs of this bird myself at the Nicobars, from all I could ascertain from the convicts, &c., these birds breed in January, February, and March, budding their nests, which, like those of other Pigeons, are merely a platform of sticks, by preference in the mangroves, and laying usually only one white egg. I observed it on the Great Cocos, but did not meet with it at the Andamans."

(21) MYRISTICIVORA BICOLOR (Scop.).

THE PIED IMPERIAL PIGEON. (Plate 9.)

Columba bicolor Scop., Del. Flor. et Faun. Insub., II p. 94 (1786). Carpoplmga myristicivora Blyth, J.A.S.B., XV p. 371 ;  Ball, ib., XXXIX pt. 2 p. 32. Carpoplmga bicolor Blyth, Cat. B.M.A.S.B., p. 232 no. 1436; Hall,  J.A.S.B., XXXIX pt. 2 p. 32 ; id., Str. Feath., I p. 79 ; Hume, Nests and Eggs, p. 496; id., Str. Feath., II pp. SO, 84, 96, 103, 114, 119, 264; Blyth, B. Burma, p. 145 ; Hume and Dav., Str. Feath., VI p. 418 ; Hume, ib., VIII p. 109; id., Cat. no. 781, quint. ; Oates, B. Burma, II p. 303 ; Everett, J.S.B.A.S. ; id., Hume's Nests and Eggs, 2nd ed., II p. 369. Myristicivora bicolor Bp., Con. Av., II p. 30 ; Walden, Trans. Z.S. Ins., p. 217 ; Salvadori, Cat. B.M., XXI p. 227 ; Blanf., Avi. Brit. I., IV p. 23 ; Sharpe, Hand-List, I p. 671 ; Oates, Cat. Eggs B.M., I p. 86 ; Butler, J.B.N.H.S., XII p. 688 ; Osmaston, ib., XVII p. 489; H. R. Baker, ib., p. 761 ; Osmaston, ib., XVIII pp. 201-2 ; id. ib., p. 359 ; Kinnear, ib., XX p. 453 ; Hopwood, ib., XXI p. 1214.

Vernacular Name. Kaluia, Car Nicobarese.

Description.—
Adult male. Whole plumage, with the exceptions noted,  white, tinted with the faintest and most delicate cream, generally more  pronounced on the head than elsewhere and varying greatly in extent and distribution in different individuals. Bastard-wing, primaries, and outer secondaries deep slaty, almost black ; central tail-feathers with a terminal band of black nearly two inches wide, this band decreasing in width on each   succeeding pair of feathers until on the penultimate pair it is only about half an inch wide, and on the outermost is seldom more than a quarter of an  inch, and often much less ; on the outermost pah also, the outer web on its central portion is margined with black. The under tail-coverts are  ometimes pure white, sometimes narrowly margined with black on the longer  feathers, whilst in a few cases the black assumes the proportion of a broad band at the tip of these feathers. Though the bastard-wing itself is black, the shoulder of the wing is white.

Colours of soft parts. " Legs and feet pale smalt blue ; the bill is leaden blue, the tip darkish horny or dark plumbeous ; hides dark brown "  (Davison).

Measurements.
"Length 16 to 17 in. ; expanse 27.5 to 30; wing S.82 to 9; tail from vent 5.12 to 5.5 ; tarsus 1.10 to 1.3 ; bill from gape 1.4 to 1.5 ; bill at front 0.9 to 1.05 ; wings when closed reach to within from 1.5 to 1.75 of end of tail; weight from 12 oz. to 1 lb." (Hume).

Adult female.   Similar to the male. It is extremely doubtful whether the creamy tint on this fine Pigeon is not due principally to stains from the fruit upon which they live. It is very irregularly disposed over the  plumage, in one bird being most pronounced on the back and rump, and in another all round the vent and abdomen ; but in nearly all cases, as I have already said, it is most highly developed about  the head, especially round the gape. If, as I think, this tint is merely nutmeg  or some other vegetable stain, we should expect to find, as is the case, that normally the head, which comes in constant contact with the fruit, most deeply stained, and the abdomen and rump which the bird constantly preens with its dye-covered bill, next most deeply marked. The tint fades  consider- ably after death, though persisting in regular patches here and there on the body, and nearly always to some extent on the head.

Distribution.
Blanford thus defines the range of this beautiful Pigeon, " From the Andamans and Nicobars through the Malay Archipelago to New Guinea and Australia where a local form (M. spilorrhoa) occurs. This  Pigeon breeds in the Nicobars, and is a seasonal visitant to the Andamans, Cocos, Narcondam, Barren Island, according to Blyth to the Mergui  Archipelago, but not, so far as is known, to the mainland of Tenasserim.  According to Dr. Mainjay, this species also visits the Islands only on the coast of the Malay' Peninsula." Since this was written it has been procured by Mr. C. Hopwood's collectors a little south of Sandoway in Arakan, Burma (1910), and long prior to that Dr. A. L. Butler recorded them as occurring at Kuala Selangor on the mainland of the Malay Peninsula, and it would therefore appear that this bird regularly, if in no great numbers, is found on the mainland of Burma from the latitude of Sandoway all down the Malay Peninsula. Mr. Hopwood's men, moreover, it should be noted, knew the bird well, and said that they were numerous, breeding on the islands off the coast, and visiting the mainland during the winter months.

Nidification.
Davison failed to actually take the nest, but writes : " Although I did not obtain the nests or eggs of this bird myself, from all I  could ascertain from the convicts, etc., these birds breed in January,  February, and March, building their nests, which, like those of other  Pigeons, are merely platforms of sticks, by preference in the mangroves, and laying usually only one white egg."

Captain Wimberley took its egg on Trinkut Island during the first week of February, and describes its nest as being similar to that of an English Wood-Pigeon, placed in an old mangrove tree overhanging a river. It contained one addled egg measuring 1.78 in. by 1.25, of the usual shape  and description. I have a nice series of these eggs in my collection taken by Mr. B. B. Osmaston at South Sentinel Island on the 17th March, 1907, and kindly given by him to me. In shape these eggs are rather long ovals, almost ellipses, and in one or two cases distinctly pointed at both ends.

The texture is very fine and close with a smooth surface, in some cases decidedly glossy. They vary in length between 1.73 ( = 43.9 mm.) and 1.90 in. ( = 48.2 mm.), and in breadth between 1.24 ( = 31.4 mm.) and 1.30 in. ( = 33 mm.), the average being 1.8 ( = 46.2 mm.) by 1.26 in. ( = 32 mm.).

Mr. Osmaston describes the taking of these eggs in the Bombay Natural  History Journal as follows : " We found the Island simply swarming with the Pied Imperial Pigeon, and it was not long before we discovered a nest containing a single fresh egg, followed by many others. Altogether we found some 50 nests containing each a single egg, some fresh, some more or less incubated.

" The nests were not, as a rule, close together. They were placed near the tops of small trees, or on the lower branches of big ones, usually about 25 ft. from the ground. One nest I found was only 10 ft. from the ground, but this was exceptional.

" The nest is the usual flimsy platform of sticks through which the egg is usually visible from below.
" The eggs are, of course, pure white, generally rather elongated ovals with a fair amount of gloss.   The measurements are as follows :—
" Longest egg 1.91 by 1.26 in.
" Shortest egg 1.67 by 1.20 in.
" Mean of 28 eggs 1.80 by 1.24 in."

Butler has the following interesting notes on this Pigeon in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society : "A strikingly hand- some bird, it associates in large flocks, and fifty or sixty dashing with a clatter of wings out of a tall tree, their black and white plumage showing up vividly against the background of green foliage, are a sight to gladden the eyes of a naturalist wandering in these steamy jungles. Though one would hardly think it, their boldly pied colouring of jetty black and cream colour is more or less protective. On the wing they are, of course, conspicuous, but among the shifting lights and shadows of a thickly-leafed tree on which the sunlight is falling, they are extremely hard to make out. I have known a flock were in the branches above me, and yet perhaps only one bird on the outside of the tree with the light shining on its bright breast would be visible.   Their note is a chuckling hu-hu-hu. " In is paragraph on its  distribution, I see Mr. Blanford quotes Dr. Maingay as stating that this Pigeon only occurs on the Islands down the coast of the Malay Peninsula. This is incorrect, it certainly keeps principally to the small islets of the coast, but only this week I shot three, and saw several more at Kuala Selangor on the mainland of the Peninsula."

On the islands it frequents, this Pigeon seems to be extraordinarily plentiful, and as tame as numerous, so that where it is not feeding on trees more than usually high, it is very easy to kill. Hume speaks of killing fifty of them in a very short time, and the limit obtainable seems to have been only restricted by cartridges and the anxiety to get other species. Davison speaks of the islands being " simply alive with them," whilst so little did this and the next species fear the presence of man
that one of the latter allowed him to get close enough to shoot it with a walking-stick gun.

The food of this Pigeon seems to be entirely frugivorous and, when in season, the favourite diet is a species of wild nutmeg (myristica sp.), " conspicuous with their blood red orillas, fruits that no one could believe that oven this large Pigeon could swallow, but two or three of which we took out of the crops of every bird we killed."

P. 211.