DOVES 231 



aggrieved agriculturists, their numbers appear to 

 increase rather than to diminish. 



The Stock-dove is another tree-loving bird, but 

 one which differs materially from the Ring-dove, 

 both in appearance and in habits. In the older 

 English parks, where the ancestral oaks arise in 

 isolated groups to give shelter to the deer, one or 

 more trees in each are found blasted by the storms. 

 The upper branches of these may still give signs 

 of vitality, but the great rifts in the lower trunks, 

 and the dead limbs standing starkly out amidst the 

 sparse foliage above, show that their days are 

 numbered. 



These decaying trees offer attractions to many 

 species of birds. Here the Green Woodpecker 

 comes to tap the loosened bark from base to summit 

 for the insects which lie beneath. On the dead 

 branches above, the chattering Starlings sit, or a 

 grey-polled Jackdaw may suddenly descend, 'to 

 disappear in a hole in one of the upper limbs which 

 he has chosen for his nest. Here, too, one may see 

 the black and white plumes of the Pied Flycatcher, 

 or the bright flickering tail of the Redstart, for in 

 the mouldering recesses of the oak each finds a 

 suitable place for the rearing of its young. Some- 

 times a mass of discarded pellets at the foot of the 

 tree warns us that a Tawny Owl has taken lodgment 

 in the great cavity of the upper trunk. 



But, as we rest in the dense bracken, lately 

 vacated by the deer, the bird which we have come 

 to seek, suddenly appears. It flies swiftly, with 

 even wing-strokes, and alights on a dead branch ; 



