536 THE STOCK DOVE OR WOOD DOVE. 



counties of England. In Epping Forest it breeds in holes of 

 the pollard hornbeams. It begins to breed in April. On April 

 21st, 1894, Mr Allan Briggs got a nest in a rabbit hole on 

 Tentsmuir, near Eden, about three hundred yards from the 

 beach. He saw the dove fly off, and got the eggs (slightly 

 sitten) by hauling out the nest with his crooked stick — the nest, 

 some stalks of bent and a few of her own feathers. Another 

 pair were seen on the 24th near the Tay. Mr Berry of Tayfield 

 has also got their eggs in the rabbit burrows. Mr Harvey 

 Brown asked him to get a specimen of the dove from the moor, 

 as he had specimens from many parts of Britain and the 

 Continent ; so that our wide Tentsmuir is the general 

 habitation of our feathered friends. They also breed in rabbit 

 holes on the Whitadder Braes at Hutton Bridge, in Berwick- 

 shire. On April 4th, 1894, a female was caught in a rabbit 

 stamp at Eckford, near Jedburgh, which a letter in the Scotsman 

 declared " was an unprecedented fact for the south of Scotland." 

 On April 21st a stock dove was sitting on eggs in a rabbit hole 

 at Paxton Dean, in Berwickshire ; so it is not so rare as Sir 

 William Jardine says in his " Birds of Great Britain and 

 Ireland," in which he says — " This species, though possessing a 

 wide geographical range, is local in Britain, and, so far as 

 we can ascertain, has not yet been met with in Scotland or 

 Ireland. It is, in fact, confined to a few of the southern 

 counties in England" — which Macgillivray iterates by saying — 

 " It has not been observed in Scotland, and even in England is 

 confined to some of the midland and southern counties." Burns 

 may have exaggerated when, in " Afton Water," he couples it 

 with the blackbird and lapwing— 



" Thou stock dove, whose echo resounds through the glen ; 

 Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, 

 Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear — 

 I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair." 



Its general colour is greyish blue ; head and throat, deep bluish- 

 grey ; sides and back of neck glossed with green and purple red ; 

 breast, lavender — under parts, blue-grey ; lower part of the 

 back, bluish grey ; tail, deep blue-grey, with a broad black bar 

 at the end — outer feathers margined with white ; iris, reddish- 

 orange ; tarsi and toes, bright red. Length, 14 inches by 26. 

 Female similar in colour. In winter it associates with the 

 ring dove in large flocks. Many are shot, and pass for that 

 bird. 



