214 



THE BIRDS OF ESSEX. 



Order COLUMB^. 



Family COLUMBID^. 



Ring-dove Columha paluinlnis. Locally "Ring-Dow." 

 A far too-abundant resident, especially in well-wooded districts. 

 They are unquestionably very injurious to the farmer. In Epping 

 Forest they are especially abundant. 



Round Orsett, where there is not much Avood- 

 land, it is not very numerous (Sackett). The 

 Rev. J. C. Atkinson says (23. 666) : 



" It is a common belief in Essex that, if you 

 touch — still more, if you breathe on — the Ring- 

 dove's eggs, she will forsake them. It is, how- 

 ever, totally without foundation ; for I remember 

 when a school-boy testing its truth." 



About the end of July, 1875, I took two rather 

 hard-set Turtle Dove's eggs from a nest in a wood 

 here. A few days later I was surprised by noticing 

 that the nest had increased considerably in size, 

 and about ten days after I was informed that it 

 had been utilized by a Wood-pigeon as the founda- 

 tion for its own nest, and that an egg of that bird 

 had been taken from it (34. x. 4723). 



In March, 1883, I heard of a white variet}- hav- 

 ing been seen about the woods near Audley 



RIXG-DOVES, 1/13. End. 



Stock-dove : Coluinba ccnas. Locally " Wild Blue Rock 

 Pigeon " (Orsett). 



A common bird throughout the county, and I believe increasing. 

 It may often be found nesting as early as February and as late as 



October. 



Henry Doubleday writes (10) from Epping in June, 1840 : " If I had known 

 that you wanted any Stock Dove's eggs, I could have got more early in the spring. 

 They often lay in February." King speaks of it (20) as " common " round Sud- 

 bury in 1838. Mr. Clarke says (24) that about 1845 it bred round Saffron AVal- 

 den, but was " not very common." 



I have taken many nests in the county — all, with one exception, in hollow trees 

 or in the crowns of ivy-covered pollards. The exception was a nest I took in May, 

 1880, in a rabbit's hole in the side of a railway cutting near Saffron Walden. Mr. 

 Benton, however, sa3-s (35. 189) that on Foulness " it sometimes breeds in rabbit- 

 holes," and a good many breed in holes in the old keep of Hedingham Castle. 



[Rock-dove : Cobimba Hvia. 



Mr. Kerry believes (46. 252) that he has received the truly wild form 

 of this bird from Walton-on-the-Naze, but I cannot help thinking that 



