THE ROCK DOVE. 149 



by all manner of persons," passed an Act in 1617 to the 

 effect that no person shall build a " doucate " unless he 

 shall be possessed of lands yielding ten chalders of 

 victual, lying around the said " doucate," or within two 

 miles of it. 



There is a farm near Fast Castle called Dowlaw, which 

 has no doubt derived this name from the great number of 

 Rock Doves frequenting the ground, the old spelling of the 

 word in the Coldingham Session Eecords being Dovelaw. 



Mr. Hardy informs me that a white Pigeon was sup- 

 posed to be an emblem of innocence,^ and was sometimes 

 sent up in the air at executions by friends of the culprit 

 as a sign of guiltlessness. An example of this took place 

 at the execution of Grace Griffins, who was hanged at 

 Berwick on the 26th of July 1823 for the murder of her 

 husband, a white Pigeon being liberated above the crowd 

 at the moment when the fatal bolt was withdrawn. 



A popular saying sometimes heard in Berwickshire is 

 that "a doo is the only bird without a ga',"^ which 

 peculiarity is thus referred to by the poet Oldham : — 



As if thou hadst unlearned the power to hate, 

 Or, like the Dove, were born without a gall. 



A piece of Lauderdale folk-lore is that " Pigeons never 

 breed when the pea blooms." Probably this may have 

 had its foundation in the fact that they do not produce 

 many young when their food is scarce, which is the case 



1 He mentions as instances of this that when St. Quentin was decapitated 

 during the persecution of Doniitian against the Christians, "a white Dove escaping 

 from his neck ascended to the heavens" {Proprium Sanctorum, f. cxxxvi., ap. 

 Brev. Alerd. t. ii.) ; also that it is related that a certain damsel, severely distem- 

 pered, having been carried to the shrine of St. Ebba, at Coldingham, recovered 

 after beholding a white Dove on the altar as a vision (Proprium Sanctorum, 

 f. Ixxxviii., ap. Brev. Alerd. t. ii.)— Mr. Hardy in letter dated the 15th of December 

 1886. For further instances see Folk-Lore of British Birds, p. 168. 



2 "The gall-bladder is wanting in Pigeons, in which, as in many other respects 

 they differ from the gallinaceous birds."— Macgillivray, History of British Birds, 

 vol. i. p. 65. 



