ROCK DOVE. — TURTLE DOVE. 359 



late Rev. Nathaniel Thornbury, who had occasionally- 

 visited Holland, informed me that the pigeons about the 

 Hague make daily marauding excursions at certain 

 seasons to the opposite shore of Norfolk, to feed on 

 vetches, a distance of forty leagues." 



COLUMBA TURTUR, Linn^us. 



TURTLE DOYE. 



The increase of late years in the number of these 

 summer visitants is also attributable in a great degree, 

 as stated by Mr. Lubbock, to the extension of our fir 

 plantations, as, in most localities where such shelter is 

 afforded them, they now breed very numerously in 

 company with the wood-pigeon, though, as remarked 

 by the same author, "the turtle breeds lower in the 

 tree than the ringdove, and chooses a smaller tree." 

 For several successive seasons until the place was 

 disturbed for building purposes about six or seven years 

 ago, a pair or two of Tui-tle Doves bred regularly 

 in "the wilderness" on Bracondale, most probably the 

 same haunt alluded to by Yarrell, on Mr. Lubbock's 

 authority, as "within half a mile of the city of 

 Norwich;" and they now nest regularly at Keswick 

 and other wooded districts in our immediate neigh- 

 hood. In the western parts of the county, about 

 Feltwell and Brandon, they are now extremely plentiful, 

 and in the vicinity of the coast abound in the extensive 

 fir coverts about Cromer and Sheringham ; yet, in 1846, 

 the Rev. E. W. Dowell, in his MS. notes, records one 

 shot at Roydon, and another at North Pickenham, as 

 rarities in that part of Norfolk,, and states that a 

 specimen **shot at Brinton puzzled all who saw it for 

 some years, as it had never been seen there before." 



