406 LEAVES FROM THE 



British fleet was driven some leagues to the southward 

 of the place where the birds forsook the ship. The day 

 after, back came the pigeons — not in one flock, but in 

 small parties of four or five at a time, till all the birds 

 were safe on board. 



This unexpected return caused some conversation on 

 board ; when Sir Edward Sprage told those who ex- 

 pressed their surprise, that he brought those pigeons 

 with him from the Streights, and that when he left the 

 Revenge for the London, all those birds, of their own 

 accord, and without the trouble or care of carrying, left 

 the Revenge, and removed with the seamen to the 

 London* 



Our tame varieties are generally considered, and with 

 good reason, to be derived from the Blue Rock pigeon, 

 or Eockier.-|- Pennant describes this species as swarm- 

 ing in the Orkneys and Hebrides, and says that, in the 

 Orkneys, they collect by thousands towards winter, and 

 do great damage to the rick-yards. He saw in Hay the 

 bottoms of the great chasms covered with their dung for 

 many feet in thickness, which was drawn up in buckets, 

 and used successfully as manure. But great as is the 

 facility with which they are domesticated, they occa- 

 sionally show sjmaptoms of their original wildness. Pen- 

 nant knew a dovecot, not far from Orm's-head, where 

 the pigeons resided, on account of the supply of food, 

 till the breeding season, when liberty and love led them 

 from the artificial pigeon-holes to those wild and vast 

 rocks. 



This species abounds in the rocky islands of the Medi- 

 terranean, and was no stranger to Yirgil, as the beautiful 

 lines in the fifth book of the ^neid % show. 



* Carleton's Memoirs] and see Yarrell's highly interesting 

 British Birds. 



t Columba livia. t L. 213, &e. 



