144 



THE STOCK DOVE. 



shire.^ Since then it has been gradually spreading and 

 increasing in various counties. In Berwickshire it seems 

 to be partial to the banks of rivers and streams, where it 

 breeds in rabbit holes or under overhanging bushes. 



In its habits this species bears considerable resemblance 

 to the Wood Pigeon, feeding on the stubble fields in the 

 autumn and the newly-sown fields in spring, like that well- 

 known bird. It also eats the seeds of various weeds.^ 



The Stock Dove may be distinguished from the Cushat, 

 even when on the wing, by its smaller size and the want of 

 any white marks on the neck or wing coverts. It differs 

 from the true Eock Dove in not having any white on the 

 rump. Its note is not so sonorous or continuous as that of 

 the Wood Pigeon. It nests in various situations, according 

 to the locality, sometimes choosing a hollow tree, or the old 

 nest of a Crow or Magpie, and frequently rabbit holes, or the 

 ground under a whin or other thick bush. The eggs are two 

 in number, and creamy white in colour. 



It was formerly thought that the Stock Dove was the 

 ancestor of our common dovecot Pigeon, and that it derived 

 its name from this circumstanca It is now, however, be- 

 lieved that the Eock Dove is the progenitor of the domestic 

 Pigeon, and that the Stock Dove got this name from building 

 in the stocks of trees. 



1 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society, 1881-83, p. 251. 



- On the 14th of December 1887 as many as 1260 seeds of grnb grass {Galium 

 aparine) and two grains of barley were taken out of the crop of a specimen of this 

 V)ird sent to me by Mr. Robert Campbell-Renton, yr. of Mordington, which he had 

 shot there. 



■<^. 



