THE DOVECOT PIGEON: 365 



deed, I should be most surprised were it satisfactorily proved that 

 any pigeon ever sits on three eggs. 



Nothing can surpass the attachment of these birds to the cot of 

 their choice. Provided you do not absolutely molest them by the 

 repeated discharge of fire-arms, they can scarcely be driven from it. 

 You may unroof their habitation ; and though you leave it in that 

 dismantled state for weeks together, still the pigeons will not forsake 

 it. At their early hour of roosting, they will approach within three 

 or four yards of the workmen, and then take shelter in the holes of 

 the roofless walls, where they remain for the night. 



Much might be written by the ornithologist on the intimacy which 

 would exist betwixt man and the feathered tribes, if man would con- 

 descend to cultivate it. Were I " close pent up in the social chimney 

 corner," on some dismal winter's evening, with an attentive " Euge- 

 nius " by my side, I would show him the cause of shyness which 

 exists betwixt the birds and us ; and, amongst other things, I would 

 prove to him that no bird ever anticipates the return of man to the 

 vicinity of its nest, by the supposed act of removing its " young to 

 new quarters/' The pretended discovery of this reasoning quality 

 in birds may be just the thing to raise the writer in the estimation 

 of the editor of the American Quarterly, but it won't go down here 

 in England. 



Our ancestors generally built their dovecots in an open field, apart 

 from the farm-yard; fearing, probably, that the noise and bustle 

 occasioned by the rustic votaries of good Mother Eleusina might 

 interrupt the process of incubation, were the dovecots placed in the 

 midst of the buildings dedicated to husbandry. 



Birds very soon get accustomed to the sounds of civilised life, be 

 they ever so loud, except those which proceed from the discharge of 

 a gun ; and even those, in some few cases of extreme hunger, will 

 not deter a famished wild bird from approaching the place where 

 nutriment can be found. How unconcernedly the daw sits on the 

 lofty steeple, while the merry chimes are going ! and with what 

 confidence the rooks will attend their nests on trees in the heart of 

 a town, even on the busy market-day ! The report of fire-arms is 

 terrible to birds ; and indeed, it ought never to be heard in places 

 in which you wish to encourage the presence of animated nature, 



