ROCK-DOVE. 247 



Kest. — Composed only of a few sticks or roots, and very 

 frequently there is none at all, the eggs being laid on the wood 

 at the bottom of a hole, or on the bare sand in a rabbit-burrow. 

 Mr. Robert Read writes to me : — ^" I have found fresh eggs of 

 this bird in Somersetshire as early as March and as late as 

 September, in both instances in the hollow head of a pollard 

 willow. I have also taken the nest from a rabbit-hole in a 

 wooded hill-side." The species also breeds in holes of trees 

 and cliffs, on beams in old church towers, old nests of other 

 birds, and squirrel's dreys. 



Eggs. — Two. Pure glossy white. Axis, 1-5-1 "65 inches; 

 diam., i •1-1*25. 



III. THE ROCK-DOVE. COLUMBA LIVIA. 



Columba livia^ Bonn. Enc. Meth. i. p. 227 (1790); Macgill. 

 Brit. B. i. p. 268 (1837); Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. it, 

 pi. 457 (1879); B. O. U. List. Brit. B. p. 139 (1883); 

 Saunders, ed. Yarrell's Brit. B. iii. p. 13 (1883) ; Seebohm, 

 Hist. Brit. B. ii. p. 405 ([884); Saunders, Man. Brit. B. 

 p. 471 (1889); Salvad. Cat. B. Brit, Mus. xxi. p. 252 

 (1893) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xxx. (1895). 



Adult Male. — General colour above delicate grey ; the wing- 

 coverts like the back, the greater series with a black band 

 across the middle, forming a wing-bar ; bastard-wing, primary- 

 coverts, and quills grey, dusky on the outer webs and at the 

 ends ; the secondaries grey at the base, with broad blackish 

 ends ; the inner secondaries black, with a sub-terminal bar of 

 grey, the innermost grey towards the ends, which have a 

 narrow dusky edging ; lower back pure white ; rump and 

 upper tail-coverts slaty-blue, a little darker than the back; 

 tail-feathers slaty-blue, with a broad sub-marginal band of 

 black ; crown of head slaty-blue, as also the sides of the face 

 and throat ; the sides of the neck and the entire hind-neck 

 metallic lilac or green, according to the light, this metallic 

 colour extending all over the fore-neck and chest ; remainder 

 of the under surface of the body clear slaty-grey, a little 

 darker on the under tail coverts ; under wing-coverts and 

 axillaries white, with the edge of the wing grey, the quill- 



