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as they were feeding in the fields, and especially in snowy 

 weather, but also at the close of the evening, by men who lay 

 in ambush among the woods and groves to kill them as they 

 came in to roost. 1 These are the principal circumstances re- 

 lating to this wonderful internal migration, which with us takes 

 place towards the end of November, and ceases early in the 

 spring. Last winter we had in Selborne high wood about a 

 hundred of these doves ; but in former times the flocks were 

 so vast, not only with us but all the district round, that on 

 mornings and evenings they traversed the air, like rooks, in 

 strings, reaching for a mile together. When they thus ren- 

 dezvoused here by thousands, if they happened to be suddenly 

 roused from their roost-trees on an evening, 



" Their rising all at once was like the sound 

 Of thunder heard remote." 



It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to add, 

 that I had a relation in this neighborhood who made it a prac- 

 tice, for a time, whenever he could procure the eggs of a ring- 

 dove, to place them under a pair of doves that were sitting in 

 his own pigeon-house ; hoping thereby, if he could bring about 

 a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and teach his own doves to 

 beat out into the woods, and to support themselves by mast ; 

 the plan was plausible, but something always interrupted the 

 success ; for though the birds were usually hatched, and some- 

 times grew to half their size, yet none ever arrived at maturity. 

 I myself have seen these foundlings in their nest displaying a 

 strange ferocity of nature, so as scarcely, to bear to be looked 

 at, and snapping with their bills by way of menace. In short, 

 they always died, perhaps for want of proper sustenance : but 

 the owner thought that by their fierce and wild demeanor they 

 frighted their foster mothers, and so were starved. 



Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes 

 a dove haunting the cavern of a rock, in such engaging num- 

 bers, that I cannot refrain from quoting the passage : and John 

 Dryden has rendered it so happily in our language, that with- 

 out farther excuse I shall add his translation also : 



" Qualis spelunca subit6 commota Columba, 

 Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, 



