OF SELBORNE. 141 
“ Naturam expellas furcd.. . tamen usque recurret.” 
I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy- 
eighth year, who tells me that fifty or sixty years 
back, when the beechen woods were much more 
extensive than at present, the number of wood- 
pigeons was astonishing ; that he has often killed 
near twenty in a day ; and that, with a long wild- 
fowl piece, he has often shot seven or eight at a 
time on the wing, as they came wheeling over his 
head ; he moreover adds, which I was not aware 
of, that often there were among them little parties 
of small blue doves, which he calls rockiers. The 
food of these numberless emigrants was beech-mast 
and some acorns, and particularly barley, which 
they collected in the stubbles. But of late years, 
since the vast increase of turnips, that vegetable 
has furnished a great part of their support in hard 
weather; and the holes they pick in these roots 
enerally damage the crop. From this food their 
esh has contracted a rancidness which occasions 
them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who 
thought them before a delicate dish. They were 
shot not only as they were feeding in the fields, 
and especially in snowy weather, but also at the 
close of the evening, by men who lay in ambush 
among the woods and groves to kill them as they 
came in to roost.* These are the principal cir- 
cumstances relating to this wonderful internal mi- 
gration, which with us takes place towards the end 
of November, and ceases’early in the spring. Last 
winter we had, in Selborne High-wood, about a 
* Some old sportsmen say that the main part of these flocks 
used to withdraw as soon as the heavy Christmas frosts were 
over. 
