178 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
The Ring Dove is a voracious feeder, and when 
present in large numbers does considerable damage to 
the crops of the agriculturist and market-gardener. 
We have seen birds that had been shot, whose crops, 
distended with turnip-tops and Brussels-sprouts, had 
burst through the impact of the fall. Some idea of the 
amount of food consumed by this species may be 
conveyed by the fact that at Ashton Hayes sixty-nine 
acorns of medium size were taken from the crop of a 
single bird! The market-gardener may well regard 
the Ring Dove with disfavour; we have seen birds 
shot in July on the extensive strawberry-fields in 
North Cheshire, whose crops were crammed with the 
ripe juicy fruit. Mr. J.J. Cash has noticed that these 
birds are partial to the young leaves of the ash, upon 
which he has observed them feeding in the tops of 
the trees, on several occasions in spring. 
Apart from the necessity of keeping down the num- 
bers of this destructive bird, the Ring Dove is much 
sought after on account of its value as an article of 
food. The absence of fear, born of security, exhibited 
by the fat, well-favoured birds in the London parks, 
contrasts strongly with the wariness which is such a 
marked characteristic of this species in an agricultural 
county. In winters when the birds are numerous, the 
farmer builds a screen of boughs round a tree-trunk 
close to some favourite feeding-ground. From this 
shelter he is able to shoot the birds, which it would 
be almost impossible to approach in the open. 
1 Dobie, op. cit. p. 328. 
