ii2 WOOD PIGEON 



The eggs are always two in number, pure white, and 

 of a rounded oval form ; two and sometimes three broods are 

 produced in the season, but the third may possibly be only 

 the consequence of a previous one having been destroyed ; 

 the eggs are hatched in eighteen days. The young are fed 

 from the bills of the parent birds with soft curdy food when 

 in the nest. The male and female both take their turns in 

 hatching the eggs and in feeding the young, the former 

 sitting from six to eight hours from nine or ten in the 

 morning to about three or four in the afternoon. 



The first brood are abroad by the beginning of May; 

 the second in the end of July. Macgillivray has known the 

 young unfledged in October, and a pair with down tips to 

 the feathers on the 26th of that month. Mr. Hewitson, too, 

 has recorded young as late as the middle of September. 



