TURTLE DOVE. . 105 
Stock Dove. But their plumage is unlike, their voice unlike, ard 
especially their habits and living and breeding haunts unlike. It 
is believed with some certainty, that the Rock Dove is the real 
origin of the Domestic Pigeon, and certainly any one who has 
seen the large flight of Domestic Pigeons turned wild, which 
frequent the caverns in the rock-bound coast near St. Abb’s Head 
and similar localities, living with, flying with, feeding with, and 
nesting with the undoubted wild Rockier, can entertam but very 
small doubts on the subject. The Rock Dove makes a loose nest 
of twigs and plant-stems and dry grass; very often far back in 
holes and crevices of the rock; and lays two-white eggs, with a 
much better defined “ hig end” and “little end’ than in the case 
of the two Pigeons last named. 
149. TURTLE DOVE—(Columba turtur.) 
Turtle, Common Turtle, Ring-necked Turtle, Wrekin Dove.— 
Only a summer visitor and not a regular inhabitant, like its three 
predecessors. It is long since, living where I do, I have heard its 
sweet, plaintive note. No one but one who loves birds and then 
ways can tell how real a deprivation it is to live for years out of 
sound of the sweet and familiar voices of such as are only local, 
the Nightingale for instance, the Turtle, and many others. The 
male Turtle Dove is a very handsome bird, but much shier and 
more retiring at breeding-time than the Ring Dove. The nest is 
a light platform of sticks, easily permitting the sky to be seen 
through it from below, and usually placed high up in a holly, a 
thick bush in a wood, in the branches of a fir, or the lesser fork of 
some limb of an oak or other forest tree. As with the other 
Doves, the eggs are two in number, quite white, about 12 inch 
long, by £ broad. 
150. PASSENGER PIGHEON—(Lefopistes magratorius). 
Every bird-loving boy, beyond doubt, has heard of this Pigeon 
