228 ENGLISH BIRD LIFE 



serving as a feeding-bottle, and she thus supphes 

 them with its half-digested, curd-like contents — the 

 pigeon-milk of the more observant rustics; a dis- 

 covery which at one time brought upon them the 

 ill-merited scorn of the less well-informed. 



The young Wood-pigeon, seen in the nest, is one 

 of the most ungainly and helpless of birds. Bare 

 of feathers, blind for nine days, and utterly depend- 

 ent upon the care of his parents for several weeks 

 longer, it stands in marked contrast w-ith the young 

 of the game-birds, or of the Waterhen, which, with 

 bright eyes, and clad in a garb of serviceable 

 down, are able to take up the battle of life at the 

 moment they emerge from the shell. 



The Wood-pigeon is one of the species which 

 has benefited by the strict game preservation of 

 these latter days. Fir coverts, to w^hich Pheasants 

 resort, are now so jealously guarded, that they form 

 sanctuaries throughout the length and breadth of 

 the land, and here the Wood-pigeon, together with 

 many of the lesser birds, find a harbour of refuge 

 where they may rear their young in the most per- 

 fect security. Increased cultivation of the land has 

 also done much to extend their range, so that to- 

 day they are an abundant species in many localities 

 — East Lothian, for example — where a century ago 

 they were altogether unknown. 



Vast hordes of immigrants, too, from Scandinavia 

 and north-eastern Europe, visit this country in 

 winter. These are said to be smaller, darker in 

 colour, and somewhat differing in their manner of 

 flight from the home-bred birds, and, notwithstand- 

 ing the incessant war waged against them by the 



