WILD PIGEONS 269 



in the stock of wood-pigeons throughout Scotland at that 

 season. 



Cushats are, in their nature, as shifty and restless as 

 are the true wildfowl ; and it is equally difficult to diagnose 

 or foretell their movements. Roughly summarised, cushats 

 are usually most numerous during severe weather ; the 

 harder and more prolonged the winter, the more cushats 

 keep coming. But they are the slaves of the weather and 

 each change affects their numbers. Thus, while heavy 

 snow may bring hundreds where few were seen before ; 

 yet in exact reverse, should they be absent in the hard 

 weather, they will appear thousands-strong on the thaw. 



All the day they spend on their feeding-grounds 

 among turnip-fields, stubble or clover-lea, alternately 

 feeding and resting on the nearest trees, the birds in the 

 latter position serving as sentries, whether purposely or 

 by accident. 



A big pack of cushats on the feed can be made out a 

 long way off by the habit of the rearmost birds continually 

 flying up and alighting in the front rank, thus causing 

 constant movement. There are localities where pigeons 

 in such conditions afford excellent sport, and large numbers 

 are killed over decoys, especially should the gunner have 

 the luck to strike a day of migration,*, when successive 

 bands keep pouring in. On one such fortunate occasion, 

 a wild stormy day at end of January, I have a note of 

 122 wild pigeons (including stockdoves) being secured by 

 two guns. This was in Roxburghshire ; and curiously 

 was the first appearance of cushats in mass in that county 

 during the winter of 1902-3— a month or six weeks later 

 than usual. 



But it is only under such exceptional conditions, or 

 where pigeons are extremely abundant and "strongly- 



