254 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



Could it be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt 

 would be settled with me at once, provided they construct their 

 nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do. 



You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex, 

 and are informed that they sometimes breed in that county. But 

 why did not your correspondent determine the place of its nidi- 

 fication, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an 

 adroit ornithologist I should doubt the fact, because people with 

 us perpetually confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 



For my own part I readily concur with you in supposing that 

 house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, Golumba 

 livia, for many reasons. In the first place the wild stock-dove 

 is manifestly larger than the common house-dove, against the 

 usual rule of domestication, which generally enlarges the breed. 

 Again, those two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each 

 wing of the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of the species, 

 would not, one should 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 

 Eoger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvonshire ; 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 fastnesses of 

 Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety amidst the inac- 

 cessible caverns and precipices of that stupendous promontory. 

 " You may drive nature out with a pitch-fork, but she will always 

 return :" 



" Naturain expellas furca . . . tamen usque recurret." 



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 extensive 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 his head ; he moreover adds, which I was not aware of, 

 that often there were among them little parties of small blue 

 doves, which he calls rockiers. The food of these numberless 



