FOR CAGES AXD AVIARIES. 43 



As might be supposed, it is not at all difficult to tame 

 the' Rock Pigeon, and instances are on record where it 

 has voluntarily availed itself of the accommodation of the 

 Dovecote, to which it will become as attached as its 

 proper inmates if it has been brought up there in conse- 

 quence of the eggs having been hatched by a domesticated 

 foster-mother. It is curious, however, that although young 

 Ring and 'Stock Doves may be reared in the same manner, 

 they will, with scarce an exception, betake them to their 

 native haunts and the more congenial companionship of 

 their respective races, proving that their relationship to 

 their nurse is much more remote, if indeed it exist 

 at all, than that of the Rock Pigeon, or Rock Dove 

 as it is also not infrequently called, the terms Pigeon 

 and Dove appearing to be interchangeable. 



Morris says that these birds roll in dust, but the present 

 writer has not chanced to come across any that did so, 

 all appearing to bathe, after the manner of their descendants, 

 in water. He also says they sometimes sleep on the 

 ground, but this is very doubtful, and where they appeared 

 to do so they were in all probability confounded with the 

 Stock Dove, which certainly does, at least sometimes, act 

 in the manner described. 



The young are able to shift for themselves in about a 

 month or five weeks from their birth, and the parents 

 have three, sometimes four, broods in the season, which 

 extends from April to the end of September. 



These birds are free drinkers, and take up the water by 

 a sucking movement in the mandibles and throat in a 

 continuous draught. The young are fed on seed macerated 

 for a time in the crop and then regurgitated into the 

 mouth of the young one, which is thrust far down into the 

 parental throat. At first, however, they receive a milky 

 secretion from a set of peculiar glands situated in the crop. 



The Stock Dove (Columba asnas, Linn.). 



This is a smaller bird than the Ringdove and differs from 

 it in several essential points, although the two species have 

 occasionallv been confounded one with the other. In the 



