STOCK DOVE. 11 



Cornwall in large flocks in winter, passing upwards into 

 Wales, in some counties of which it certainly breeds — among 

 the rocks of Merthyr Tydfil, for example — although nowhere 

 so numerous as the Eing Dove. In Devonshire it is prob- 

 ably increasing, and Mr. Cecil Smith says that it is twenty- 

 fold more numerous in Somersetshire now than in 1869. 

 Although of somewhat local distribution, it occurs through- 

 out the southern, midland, and eastern counties including 

 Lincolnshire, where, Mr. Cordeaux says, it is distinctly 

 on the increase ; and, although scarcer to the north of 

 the Humber, it breeds regularly in the rocks and rabbit- 

 holes of the cliffs in the Hambleton Hills. It has already 

 become common in the neighbourhood of Castle Eden 

 Dene, Durham, and has even pushed its breeding range as 

 far as Northumberland and Berwickshire. Its occurrence 

 in Stirlingshire and southern Perthshire has been recorded 

 by Mr. Dalgleish (Ibis, 1878, p. 38'2), and Mr. R. Gray 

 says that there is evidence that it has straggled as far as 

 Orkney. The instances already cited in which this species 

 has been mistaken for the Eock Dove on the strength of 

 its selecting holes in cliffs for its nesting-place, lead to the 

 supposition that similar and as yet undiscovered errors may 

 have been made elsewhere. In Ireland its occurrence was 

 first recorded by Lord Clermont, who obtained one in 

 October, 1875,* and subsequently obtained another, and ob- 

 served the birds nesting in a crevice of the rock on the hill- 

 side on the borders of Armagh and Louth — a locality which 

 they had been known to frequent for some years, but until 

 then it had not been decided whether they were this species 

 or the Eock Dove. It has also been obtained, and has bred, 

 in county Down.f 



On the continent it has once been known to straggle 

 beyond the arctic circle, but its usual northern range 

 nearly coincides v/ith that where the oak grows (about 60° 

 to 61° N. lat.) : it being plentiful in south-eastern Norway, 

 Sweden, Germany, and suitable localities in Eussia as far 

 as the Ural, migrating southward in winter. In some of the 



• Zoologist, 187G, p. 4798. t Op. cil., 1877, p. 383. 



