113 



STOCK DOVE. 



PLATE CXXilV. - PIG. II. 



Oolumba oenas, PzirefAST. SELBT. 



NIDIFICATIOX begins about the end of March, or the beginning of 

 April. 



The nest, which is flat and shallow a mere layer of a few sticks 

 slightly put together, is often placed on the ground in an old de- 

 serted rabbit burrow, where any exist, and in this case on the bare 

 sand or earth, a few sticks being occasionally used; and in such 

 places under furze and other bushes, where the surface is hollowed; 

 also, ordinarily, in any suitable holes in trees, from four or five feet 

 to ten times that height from the ground. The same hole is some- 

 times resorted to again, but not the same year, and if disturbed by 

 other would-be tenants, they stoutly defend their own: a second brood 

 is reared in the year. Incubation lasts about seventeen days, and 

 in about a month the young are able to fly. The parents are very 

 careful of the eggs, and will even sit on them till taken- off with 

 the hand. James Dalton, Esq., of Worcester College, Oxford, has 

 found the nest of the Stock Dove in a hollow of a decayed elm 

 tree, something more than a foot in depth, at Hillesden, near 

 Buckingham; the nest was made of hay or grass. Leaves are on 

 occasion used likewise for the purpose. 



The eggs, white, are smaller than those of the Queest, and some- 

 what pointed at the smaller end, but rounded on the whole, and of 

 an oval shape. 



VOL. II. 



