RING DOVE. 5 



been commenced by Rooks, Partridges or hares, the Pigeons 

 continue to hollow them out very successfully ; whilst there 

 can be no doubt that they eat the leaves, and thus check the 

 growth of the turnip in its earlier stages.* They are fond 

 of bathing in and drinking fresh water, and Mr. Cordeaux 

 states that in summer, but at no other time, this species 

 resorts daily to the marsh drains of the Humber district 

 to which the tide has access for the purpose of drinking the 

 brackish water; Mr. H. Blake-Knox has also observed it 

 eating sea-weed on the rocks left bare by the ebb. It is 

 partial to the seeds of the common buttercup {Ranunculus 

 acr'is), as well as the berries of the holly and the yew; and 

 when it resorts to the stubbles after harvest to consume the 

 scattered grain, it also devours an immense number of the 

 seeds of various weeds, thereby rendering services to the 

 farmer which in some measure counterbalance the depreda- 

 tions of the rest of the year. 



In England it has long been known as an abundant 

 and generally distributed species, whose numbers have 

 shewn a decided tendency to increase ; but in Scotland the 

 spread of high cultivation has assisted its progress in a 

 remarkable manner. In East Lothian, where less than a 

 century ago the species was quite unknown, the records 

 of the Agricultural Society of that district shew that no 

 less than 130,440 birds were destroyed between 1863-1870 

 without materially affecting its numbers. The eastern dis- 

 tricts of Scotland frequently suffer from the arrival of im- 

 mense flocks from the continent, a large proportion taking 

 up their abode in the country, but on the western side 

 although on the increase it is less numerous, and although 

 ranging up to Sutherlandshire, it is merely a straggler to the 

 westward of the Inner Hebrides. Even to the Orkneys and 

 the storm-swept, treeless Shetlands, its visits are becoming 

 more frequent, and it has wandered several times as far as 

 the still bleaker Faeroes. In Ireland it is generally distri- 

 buted and on the increase. On the continent of Europe it 

 ranges in summer throughout suitable districts up to about 



* R. Gray, op. cit. 



