358 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



using only a few sticks by way of lining, in tlie stocks 

 of old oak pollards, (from which circumstance, according 

 to Yarrell, it has acquired the name of stock-dove), or, 

 as my friend Mr. Edwards informs me, in any faggot 

 stacks left in the plantations for the summer, the nest 

 being generally placed at the bottom should sufficient 

 space remain for the purpose. Mr. Newton has also 

 recorded ("Zoologist," 1849, p. 2525, note) a single 

 instance in which he found a pair of eggs of this bird 

 at Elveden, near Thetford, " laid on a very thick bushy 

 bough of a Scotch fir tree, about twelve feet from the 

 ground, without any nest." Mr. Samuel Bligh, who has 

 studied the habits of this species during the breeding 

 season at Framingham Earl, says that their actions 

 are occasionally anything but dove-like, as they fight 

 most desperately till one or both fall to the ground. 

 He has shot them in the very act. 



The EocK Dove (Columba livia), from which there 

 is no doubt our "blue rocks" and other fancy varieties 

 have really sprung, is not found on our Norfolk coast, 

 but it is worthy of remark, as confirmatory rather of 

 the above statement, that the steeples of many of our 

 churches in both town and country are frequented by 

 pigeons in a half-wild state, which nest regularly year 

 after year, like the jackdaws, in any chance apertures in 

 the old towers; and generally in such situations as 

 to be safe from all molestation. The still unfinished 

 steeple of St. Peter's Mancroffc, in this city, affords an 

 unusual number of openings for such purposes, and I 

 have often watched these truant pigeons, at all times of 

 the year, passing in and out of their adopted homes. 

 Yarrell (Brit. Birds, 2nd ed., p. 292), referring to 

 the great powers of vision and the speed and duration 

 of flight of our dove-house pigeons, gives the fol- 

 lowing remarkable statement, on the authority of Dr. 

 Jenner: — "My ingenious friend and neighbour, the 



