NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 93 



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, 

 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 be- 

 ing reclaimed ; but would often break out among its descend- 

 ants. But what is worth a hundred arguments is, the instance 

 you give in Sir Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvon- 

 shire ; 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 them- 

 selves to the fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young 

 in safety amidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices of that 

 stupendous promontory. 



" Naturam 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 wheel- 

 ing over his head : he moreover adds, which I was not aware 

 of, that often there were among them little parties of sma]l 

 blue doves, which he calls rockiers. The food of these num- 

 berless emigrants was beech-mast and some acorns ; and par- 

 ticularly barley, which they collected in the stubbles. But of 

 late years, since the vast increase of turnips, that vegetable 

 has furnished a great part of their support in hard weather ; 

 and the holes they pick in these roots greatly damage the crop. 

 From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness which 

 occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who 

 thought them before a delicate dish. They were shot not only 



