DOVE 163 
In former days, when the breadth of land in Britain under green 
crops was comparatively small, these birds found little food in the 
dead season, and this scarcity was a natural check on their super- 
abundance. But since the extended cultivation of turnips and 
plants of similar use the case is altered, and perhaps at no time of 
the year has provender become more plentiful than in winter. The 
Ring-Dove may be easily distinguished from other European species 
by its larger size, and especially by the white spot on either side 
of its neck, forming a nearly continuous “ring,” whence the bird 
takes its name, and the large white patches in its wings, which are 
very conspicuous in flight. It breeds several times in the year, 
making for its nest a slight platform of sticks on the horizontal 
bough of a tree, and laying therein two eggs—which, as in all the 
Columbidz, are white. 
The Stock-Dove (C. wnas of most authors) is a smaller species, 
with many of the habits of the former, but breeding by preference 
in the stocks of hollow trees or in rabbit-holes. It is darker in 
colour than the Ring-Dove, without any white on its neck or wings, 
and is much less common and more locally distributed. Formerly 
scarce or unknown in the north of England, it has of late years 
been found to extend over almost the whole of Scotland. 
The Rock-Dove (C. livia, Temm.) much resembles the Stock- 
Dove, but is of a lighter colour, with two black bars on its wings, 
and a white rump. In its wild state it haunts most of the rocky 
parts of the coast of Europe, from the Feroes to the Cyclades, and, 
seldom going inland, is comparatively rare. Yet, as it is without 
contradiction the parent-stem of all our domestic Pigeons, its 
numbers must far exceed those of both the former put together. 
In Egypt and various parts of Asia it is represented by what Mr. 
Darwin has called “ Wild Races,” which are commonly accounted 
good “species” (C. schimperi, C. affinis, C. intermedia, C. leuconota, 
and so forth), though they differ from one another far less than do 
nearly all the domestic forms, of which more than 150 kinds that 
“breed true,” and have been separately named, are known to exist. 
Very many of these, if found wild, would have unquestionably 
been ranked by the best ornithologists as distinct ‘‘ species,” and 
1 Yet one curious fact in connexion herewith has never been satisfactorily 
explained. It not unfrequently happens that after Wood-Pigeons have abounded 
in a district for some two or three years, so as to be a perfect plague, their 
numbers have suddenly dwindled without any assignable cause, for the ordinary 
modes of destruction prove wholly futile in checking their multiplication. 
Another fact, perhaps worth recording, is the curious increase of late years—say 
from 1885, or possibly a little earlier—of this species in St. James’s Park, where 
it is now as numerous, if not as familiar, as in what used to be the Gardens of 
the Tuileries in Paris. I had long known that it inhabited the singular paradise 
afforded by the gardens of Buckingham Palace, but that it should establish 
itself even nearer to the centre of London I had not expected. 
