The Stock- Dove 37 



a tall hedge, a low fir, or a holly ; and, if the district 

 is the right one, there is nothing wonderful in coming 

 upon the equally fragile and slovenly house of the 

 turtle. Again, the rock-dove, like his domestic de- 

 scendant, loves a dark corner to build his cot of twigs 

 and grass in, and on this point he and the stock-dove 

 are more or less at one. In the books the latter bird 

 is usually described as building in hollows of trees, 

 like the starling and the jackdaw of many districts ; 

 and this is doubtless true. Supposing, however, that 

 I wanted a stock-dove's egg, I should not go to the 

 forest, but to a well-remembered spot where as a boy 

 with shame be it spoken I often did that crime 

 which Shenstone's mistress would not pardon : 



For he ne'er could be true, she averred, 

 That could rob a poor bird of its young, 



And I blessed her the more when I heard 

 Such tenderness fall from her tongue. 



I know an old quarry on a lone hillside where the 'red ' 

 (or refuse) has streamed down the brae and been inter- 

 cepted here and there by whins. Above is a wooded 

 knoll, planted with fir-trees, stubbornly upright though 

 gnarled and twisted by long sequences of nor'-easters, 

 and with one or two stunted oaks and elms in the 

 shelter. Below, the neat and hedgerowed fields stretch 

 far across the slow stream, winding in and out like a 

 serpent of silver, now between arable and pasture, and 

 anon fringed with willows or half-hid in woodland. Be- 

 yond the moorland rises into a hill and then slopes to 



