36 Spring 



his cousin the cushat, he is a regular migrant, and while 

 he is with us will hide among the tall beeches, feed 

 with a crowd of relatives, and altogether live a life of 

 ease and retirement, none can tell if his times are good 

 or bad. He is the least distinguished of doves. 

 Many country folk, and some sportsmen, believe with 

 their forefathers of a hundred years ago that he has 

 no separate existence that his name is but an alias of 

 the cushat. It is like enough, indeed, that the rural 

 legend of the cushat's song has been developed from 

 this very confusion of identity. Long ago, it says, the 

 cushat nested among nettles or grass on the ground, 

 while the partridge abode in trees. One day, however, 

 two cows trampled the cushat's eggs to pieces. A 

 Welshman came and drove one beast out of the 

 pasture, and the cushat, as he flitted to his new home 

 in the tree-tops, sang and still sang to him, ' tak two 

 coos, Taffy-tak.' I may remark that this onomatopoeia 

 is far truer to the sound than Gawin Douglas's in his 

 exquisite description of the ' gentilldow,' which is 

 simply, ' I come bidder to wow.' That, however, is by 

 the way. What I wanted to remark is that this notion 

 of the cushat building on the ground is not so mad as 

 it seems, for that the stock-dove does so regularly. As 

 the two birds resemble each other closely, the country- 

 folk would naturally conclude that the cushat it was 

 which had his home below. 



Here, indeed, the stock-dove differs from all the 

 rest of the family. You seek the ring-dove's nest in 



