50 WILD LIFE: FURRED AND FEATHERED. 



guished from the latter by being smaller in size, and of 

 duller tones of colouring, also by his more rounded wing. 

 Male and female have the same plumage, the yellow tint 

 being always brighter after the moulting season in the 

 autumn. His nest is an oval, dome-shaped, the opening 

 being rather to the top than the middle ; it is composed of 

 dry grass, leaves and moss, well lined with feathers. Some- 

 times this is placed in evergreens and other bushes, but 

 usually amongst grasses and ferns, not far above the 

 ground. 



In the woods overhead the wood-pigeons or ring-doves 

 are all alive, cooing, clapping their wings, spreading out 

 their tails, and floating about. Their breeding season has 

 begun ; you may watch the birds coming and going to their 

 slightly- built nests, which are composed of twigs laid 

 crosswise in the larch-trees, or almost any kind of tree. 

 Sometimes these are placed on the hollowed places where 

 other birds have nested, or which squirrels have used. 

 Grain of all sorts, peas, leaves, and bulbs of turnips form 

 their diet, with beech-nuts and berries in their seasons. 

 Farmers complain terribly of these voracious birds, but 

 in writing of them a Son of the Marshes, whom it would 

 be difficult for me to refrain from quoting, states that the 

 Surrey farmer will grumble and say, " They comes to the 

 fields, they gits in the corn, they gits all over the place, an' 

 they spiles the turmits." I myself received a very well- 

 written protest against these hungry birds from a young lady, 

 the daughter of a large farmer on the higher lands above 

 the Thames, fully endorsing the above-quoted complaints. 

 Yet we learn further from the naturalist that two of the wild 

 plants which are the farmers' worst foes are charlock and 

 the wild mustard plant, and that the pigeons search out and 



