Ebook: Indian pigeons and doves

London: Witherby & Co, 1913. - 348 p.
My reasons for writing a volume upon our Indian Pigeons and Doves are several, and I trust will be deemed sufficient by my readers.
In the first place, there has as yet been no book published which deals with these most beautiful birds from the point of view of the Sportsman and Field-Naturalist as well as from that of the Scientific or Museum Naturalist, and as this is a gap in the records of our Indian Avifauna which badly needs filling, I may be forgiven for trying to bridge it. Skins — as skins — are, without doubt, full of interest, and especially so, perhaps, when the person studying them is more or less intimate with the life-histories of the birds themselves; but Pigeons are well worthy of study in ways other than by dry skins. To the Field-Naturalist they are birds full of interest; to the Aviculturist they are birds more charming and worthy of culture than has hitherto been generally admitted, and to the Sportsman they offer an object well worthy of attention, for he must have a quick eye, a sure hand, and considerable perseverance and patience before he has mastered their habits and is able to find them and, when foimd, bring them to bag.
Books referring to Pigeons and Doves, of course, aboimd; but they are difBcult of access and expensive to purchase. Volume XXI of the Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, by Count Salvadori, is the standard work on these birds; but one does not want twenty-seven volumes of a work, at a cost of something well over fifty pounds, for the sake of Pigeons only.
In the same way, Blanford's Vol. IV of the Avifauna of British India deals with this family very thoroughly ; but the volimie is one of foiu", and contains much matter besides such as refers to the birds we are now considering ; and, moreover, it tells us but little about the Pigeon itself, except as a museum-specimen. Jerdon contains rather fuller accoimts, but, wonderful book as this still is, it was written nearly sixty years ago, and cannot but be somewhat out of date, as well as being difficult to obtain. Hume's volumes of Stray Feathers have odd notes full of interest when one can find them, and in the same way many other Natural History journals have references to Pigeons, but they also are scattered and difficult to find. Finally, so many of my friends and others have asked me to write a book on the Indian Pigeons, that I think there must be some groimds for hoping that a volume upon them wiU be kindly received.