THE WOODPIGEON 



THE woodpigeon is many things to 

 many men. To the farmer, who has 

 some claim to priority of verdict, it is a 

 curse, even as the rabbit in Australia, the 

 lemming in Norway, or the locust in Algeria. 

 The tiller of the soil, whose business brings 

 him in open competition with the natural 

 appetites of such voracious birds, beasts, or 

 insects, regards his rivals from a standpoint 

 which has no room for sentiment ; and the 

 woodpigeons are to our farmers, particularly 

 in the well- wooded districts of the West 

 Country, even as Carthage was to Cato the 

 Censor, something to be destroyed. 



It is this attitude of the farmer which makes 

 the woodpigeon pre-eminently the bird of 

 February. All through the shooting season 

 just ended, a high pigeon has proved an 

 irresistible temptation to the guns, whether 

 cleaving the sky above the tree-tops, doub- 

 ling behind a broad elm, or suddenly swinging 

 out of a gaunt fir. Yet it is in February, when 

 other shooting is at an end and the coverts 

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