222 The Birds of Virgil. 



Romans used columba to denote their domestic 

 bird, and also a wild bird which made its nest in 

 rocks, the conclusion is almost certain that by that 

 word we are to understand our Blue-rock pigeon 

 (Columba livia) ; and if this is so, by palumbes 

 must be meant one of the other two Italian 

 pigeons, the Wood-pigeon (Columba palumbus, 

 Linn.) or the Stock-dove (Columba aenas, Linn.). 

 Both species, as I have said, are now birds of 

 passage in Italy, while the Blue-rock is resident ; 

 and Pliny tells us of the palumbes that it arrived 

 every year in great numbers from the sea he 

 does not say at what season. Perhaps the Stock- 

 dove * is the more likely of the two to have been 

 the bird generally meant by palumbes ; but it is 

 quite possible that, like the unskilled of the present 

 day, the Romans confounded the two species, and 

 wrote of them as one. 



But there is still a difficulty. The palumbes in 

 the time of Virgil and Pliny seems to have bred 

 in Italy ; Pliny knew all about their breeding (x. 

 147 and 153), and Virgil makes Damoetas mark 



1 Philemon Holland so translates palumbes in his version of 

 Pliny. 



