CHAPTER XXII 



WILD PIGEONS 



Few are the fowls of the air to which the author owes a 

 debt of deeper gratitude than to the homely wood-pigeon 

 — the first to reach the four-figure score in those long- 

 ago days when one kept a game-list of one's own. The 

 cushat, as it is generally called in the north, comes in 

 throngs every winter to our woods, and affords many 

 an excellent evening's sport, and that at the very season 

 when game is scarcest and least available, namely, during 

 January, February, and March. 



This chapter was originally written from twenty years' 

 observation of these pigeons in the county of Durham, 

 wherein one was aided in following their migratory 

 movements by a local circumstance. Beautiful by nature 

 as is nearly the whole of that county, yet it possesses 

 the misfortune — or good fortune, according to the point 

 of view — of being underlaid by some of the richest 

 coal-measures in the world. One result of numerous 

 collieries, smoke-stacks, and coke-ovens is that the surface 

 of the land in their neighbourhood becomes begrimed : 

 and this discoloration extends to the resident birds ; 

 hence it becomes possible to distinguish new-comers from 

 residents by their cleaner, brighter plumage on first 

 arrival. New-comers in fact are "ear-marked" in a 



