WOOD-PIGEONS. 



think, be totally lost by its being reclaimed; but 

 would often break out among its descendants. But 

 what is worth a hundred arguments, is the instance 

 you give in Sir Roger Mostyn's house- doves in Caer- 

 narvonshire ; which, though tempted by plenty of 

 food and gentle treatment, can never be prevailed on 

 to inhabit their cote for any time ; but, as soon as 

 they begin to breed, betake themselves to the fast- 

 nesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety 

 amidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices of that 

 stupendous promontory. 



" Naturam expellas furca. .tamen usque recurret." 

 Nature, expell'd by force, will still return. 



I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy- 

 eighth year, who tells me, that fifty or sixty years 

 back, when the beechen woods were much more ex- 

 tensive than at present, the number of wood-pigeons 

 was astonishing; that he has often killed near 

 twenty in a day ; and that, with a long wild-fowl 

 piece, he has shot seven or eight at a time on the 

 wing, as they came wheeling over head : he more- 

 over adds, which I was not aware of, that often 

 there were among them little parties of small blue 

 doves, which he calles rockier s. The food of these 

 numberless emigrants was beech-mast and some 

 acorns ; and particularly barley, which they collected 

 in the stubbles. But of late years, since the vast in- 

 crease of turnips, that vegetable has furnished a great 

 part of their support in hard weather : and the holes 

 they pick in these roots greatly damage the crop. 

 From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness, 

 which occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges 

 of eating, who thought them before a delicate dish. 

 They were shot not only as they were feeding in the 

 fields, and especially in snowy weather, but also at 

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