The Stock Dove. 57 



leaving its breeding haunts about the end of 

 October. 



The Stock Dove is fourteen inches in length from 

 the tip of the beak to the end of the tail, and its 

 stretch of wing is twenty-six inches. Its general 

 colouring is bluish-grey. The head, wings, and back 

 are of this colour, and the tail is the same, but 

 tipped with leaden grey. Some dark spots on the 

 wing feathers form an irregular bar across the 

 wing, whilst the sides of the neck are glossy, 

 iridescent green. The top of the breast is of a 

 delicate wine- red hue, on account of which the bird 

 has received the scientific name aenas, from the 

 Greek olvos wine. 



The female, as is the case in most of the pigeon 

 family, is smaller and less brilliant than the male, 

 but otherwise resembles her mate. Young birds, 

 before' their first moult, may be distinguished from 

 older birds by the absence of the metallic colour on 

 the neck. 



It was once erroneously supposed that this bird 

 was the parent stock, from which our domestic 

 pigeons sprang, and hence some thought that it 

 had thus acquired the name of Stock Dove. But it 

 undoubtedly received its name from the habit of 

 nesting in the stocks or trunks of trees. The rock 

 pigeon (Columba Hvia) is, without doubt, the 



