126 STOCK DVOE. 



STOCK DOVE 



PLATE CXXXIV. - FIGURE II. 



Columba anas, PENNANT. SELBY. 



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 deserted 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 sometimes 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 Dal ton, 

 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. 



