200 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



The stock dove's selection of breeding haunts is 

 entirely different from those of the ring dove, and since 

 its breeding arrangements are better, since further, the 

 factors which have so favoured one are equally in favour 

 of the other, it is hard to understand why the ring dove 

 has proved so much the more successful of the two. 



The stock dove generally nests in a hollow tree, being 

 especially partial to ash, though sometimes it builds 

 down a rabbit hole, or even in the open, under a dense 

 bush, like the fern owl. In sheltered valleys I have known 

 it to nest very frequently in a crevice or small cave among 

 rocks, the same situation being used year after year. It 

 is, I consider, a better table bird than the ring dove. 



Only once have I met with the rock dove inland. In 

 my boyhood they used to breed in a closed in little valley 

 which was a veritable bird sanctuary, the crags rising 

 from the burn edge being very treacherous, and practically 

 inaccessible. The burn is a tributary of the River Wharf e. 

 The rock dove is essentially a bird of the sea crags, and 

 though it feeds inland, it hardly comes within the scope 

 of this book. 



The turtle dove is the smallest of our British repre- 

 sentatives, but I have had scanty opportunity of observing 

 its ways. Visiting Sussex recently I saw a great number 

 there, and in the evenings they made an attractive picture 

 manoeuvring in their courtships. The male birds were 

 very amorous, and could be heard in the grounds through- 

 out the day. They have the same vertical rise and down- 

 ward dip as the ring dove, and I noticed a very strange 

 sound which occurred when the bird was in flight — a 

 loud sighing note, which is evidently created in some 

 way by the wings and tail, like the drumming of the snipe. 

 It occurs only in courtship. The little birds are much 

 given to perching on the topmost pinnacle of fir and silver 

 birch trees, and when one alights thus the other invariably 



