BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



row of holes, placed at thebottom of a "dummy" 

 window with a pointed top. 



Pigeons are still the tenants of this most at- 

 tractive cote. About fifty pairs occupy it in the 

 breeding-season, reinforced bynew-comers to- 

 wards autumn, when, as the owner tellsus, wild 

 pigeons seem glad to take refuge from the at- 

 tacks of the numerous peregrine falcons then 

 on passage. 



Coming to Fifeshire,we find acounty still rich 

 in dovecotes, though many have disappeared 

 since the close of the eighteenth century, when 

 the numberexisting is stated tohavebeen three 

 hundred and sixty. There was a local saying that 

 the usual possessions of a Fifeshire laird com- 

 prised "a puckle land, a lump o' debt, a doocot, 

 and alawplea" — no very rich inheritance. Two 

 of those still remaining shall be noticed here as 

 being readily accessible. 



The first is in the immediate vicinity of 

 Rosyth Castle, an old tower which, formerly 

 standing on a strip of land which was an island 

 at high water, has now been absorbed into the 

 vast enclosure of the new naval dockyard, and 

 looks forlorn enough, surrounded as it is by gas- 

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