174" Damage to Corn. 



o 



laws in favour of these birds, were a most 

 cruel and fertile source of oppression. Every 

 one will judge for himself of the degree of 

 credit to be given to the following state- 

 jnent, extracted from Mr. Vancouver's va- 

 luable survey of the county of Devon. 



Pigeons often fly to a great distance for 

 their food, and when they can find corn to 

 eat, seldom prey upon any thing else. 

 They begin to eat corn about the middle 

 of July, and rarely want the same food 

 at the stacks, in the straw-yards, of" in the 

 fields, until the end of barley sowing, 

 which is about old May-day, and which in- 

 cludes a period of two hundred and eighty 

 days, or better than three quarters of the 

 year ; the rest of the time they live upon 

 xhe seeds of weeds and bentings. It is 

 somewhere stated that, in England and in 

 Wales, there are twenty thousand dove- 

 iiousEs, averaging each at about one 

 hundred pair of old pigeons. We will 

 take this estimate at three-fourths, which 

 will equal one million, one hundred and 

 twenty five thousand pair of dove-houso 



