Vf.] CULTIVATION. 



all, seem equally fond of the spear of the com ; 

 a thing which I was wholly unaware of, until 

 they had done me great mischief, which it was 

 by no means in my power to repair. An inno- 

 cent dove will come peeping round the field ; 

 and after having settled, in the most modest 

 manner, amongst the thickest branches of a tree 

 or a bush, as if to disguise from the admiring 

 farmer her spangled dress and the white ruff 

 round her neck and her pretty blue and love- in- 

 spiring eyes, will, the moment his back is turned, 

 slip down upon the ground, get upon a row of 

 corn, and trip along like a Circassian, from spear 

 to spear, till she has got twenty or thirty in her 

 craw. These are done for ; for, though they will 

 shoot up again, they will be feeble, backward, and, 

 in short, the crop is almost wholly destroyed; 

 for the lady-dove does not devour the top of the 

 spear, but, regulated by the maxim, that the 

 nearer the bone the sweeter the meat, she plucks 

 it off as nearly to the ground as possible, or a 

 little way into the ground, swallows the bottom, 

 and rejects the top. The mortification which 

 these wretched creatures gave me last spring 

 made me a hundred times think of the Scripture, 

 and say, that, if I must have one of the two, give 

 me the cunning serpent in preference to the 

 harmless dove -, for any thing so mischievous as 

 these, ©f the feathered race, I know nothing of. 

 B 



