302 REMARKS ON THE ROCK DOVE. 



of the country he usurps the right of his ancestor the Stock Dove, who, 

 amid all our flights and sights of the Pigeon tribe, is never heard of, 

 because the claims of the latter have been set aside by a petted upstart 

 and pretender. 



Barmley, 8mo. 27th. , 1858. 



[I cannot coincide with Dr. Payne in the opinions he has expressed 

 about the Rock Pigeon. I do not see how the "agency of arts" can be 

 traced in a thoroughly wild species, nor can I consider the white mark 

 over the tail a "trifling" difference. If, in the wild bird, to say nothing 

 of the domesticated one, the mark be "semper, ubique, et in omnibus," it is 

 amply sufficient as a specific distinction. 



I do not understand the remark about the Sparrow-Hawk. I suppose 

 Dr. Payne does not mean to assert that it too is not a species; neither 

 can I understand how he can "think he sees a well-defined species" on 

 "apparently fallacious grounds." Dr. Payne says that he has never seen a 

 Stock Dove, unless the Pigeon that builds in cliffs near Pontefract be one, 

 (which I am confident it is not,) and yet he asserts that it generally 

 builds in banks. It does build in rabbit-holes sometimes, but he does 

 not name these, and I am aware of no authority for the mere bank. 

 I think he never heard of the tame Pigeon doing so, which on his 

 theory it ought to do. As to the notion that the young of a dog which 

 had lost its tail, might possibly for that reason be tailless also, I 

 think I need say nothing. 



As to the so-called Wild Cats, I should suppose that no one, not pre- 

 tending even to be a naturalist, would confound the common Domestic 

 Cat run wild with the Wild Cat, "figured," and properly figured, "of a 

 beautiful striped grey colour," beyond allowing that it had originally come 

 down from that stock. Again, if Dr. Payne quotes from my "History of 

 British Birds," his quotation of the relative size of the Stock Dove and 

 the Rock Pigeon is not quite correctly given, the length of the latter 

 being "one foot one inch to one foot two inches," which is not absolutely 

 the same as "one foot two inches." The habits, I may add, of the two 

 birds are totally different. I can only suppose that those which Dr. Payne 

 has taken for Rock Pigeons, breeding near Pontefract, in the West Riding, 

 may be tame Pigeons escaped from dove-cotes, which have taken up their 

 abode there, and recovered somewhat of their original nature and habits, 

 those of the Rock Pigeon. Lastly, I cannot understand what Dr. Payne 

 means by saying that the older naturalists have "overlooked as a variety" 

 a bird which they have described as a distinct species; nor again how the 

 Rock Pigeon can have made the rocks and cliffs its dwelling-place because 

 it has been "taught to live amongst stone and lime by its protector man." 

 _-F. O. Morris.] 



