142 NATURAL HISTORY 
hundred of these doves; but in former times the 
flocks were so vast, not only with us, but all the 
district round, that on mornings and evenings they 
traversed the air, like rooks, in strings, reaching 
fora mile together. When they thus rendezvoused 
by thousands, if they happened to be suddenly roused 
from their roost-trees on an evening, 
“ Their rising all at once was like the sound 
Of thunder heard remote.” 
It will by no means be foreign to the present 
purpose to add, that I had a relation in this neigh. 
bourhood who made it a practice, for a time, when- 
ever he could procure the eggs of a ring-dove, to 
place them under a pair of doves that were sitting 
in his own pigeon-house, hoping thereby to teach 
his own doves to beat out into the woods and sup- 
port themselves by mast; the plan was plausible, 
but something always interrupted the success ; for, 
though the birds were usually hatched, and some- 
times grew to half their size, yet none ever arrived 
at maturity. I myself have seen these foundlings 
in their nest, displaying a strange ferocity of nature, 
so as scarcely to bear to be looked at, and snapping 
with their bills by way of menace. In short, they 
always died, perhaps for want of proper sustenance ; 
but the owner thought that by their fierce and wild 
demeanour they frighted their foster-mothers, and 
so were starved.* 
* Food for the ring-dove-—Onesof my neighbours shot a ring- 
dove on an evening as it was returning from feed and going to 
roost. When his wife had picked and drawn it, she found its 
craw stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips. 
Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, when grain fails, 
can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There is reason to sup- 
pose that they would not long be bealthy without ; for turkeys, 
