OF SELBORXE. 109 



havock for some days among the new-flown swallows and 

 martins, which, being but lately out of their nests, had not 

 acquired those powers and command of wing that enable them, 

 when more mature, to set such enemies at defiance. 



LETTER XLIV. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780. 

 DEAR SIR, 



EVERT incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence 

 will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. 



As to the wild wood-pigeon, the oenas, or vinago, of Ray, I 

 am much of your mind; and see no reason for making it the 

 origin of the common house-dove : but suppose those that have 

 advanced that opinion may have been misled by another 

 appellation, often given to the oenas, which is that of stock- 

 dove. 



Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in man- 

 ners from itself in summer, no species seems more unlikely to 

 be domesticated, and to make an house-dove. We very rarely 

 see the latter settle on trees at all, nor does it ever haunt the 

 woods; but the former, as long as it stays with us, from No- 

 vember perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with the 

 ring-dove, palumbus torquatus ; frequents coppices and groves, 

 supports itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the 

 tallest beeches. Could it be known in what manner stock- 

 doves build, the doubt would be settled with me at once, pro- 

 vided 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 

 it's nidification, 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. 



