386 WOOD-PIGEON SHOOTING. 



of great dinners. Still roast wood-pigeon, with bread 

 sauce, if some of our readers will give it a fair trial, 

 we think they will be constrained to admit, is at all 

 times, excellent. On account, however, of the exceed- 

 ing wildness and wariness of this bird, it taxes the 

 ingenuity of the keenest sportsman to get wood-pigeons, 

 when he wants them: and yet the wood-pigeon is one 

 of those birds that is always with us, which we have 

 already noticed, as a follower of the plough, and a 

 dweller in the vicinity of human habitations. 



Wherever there is plenty of cultivation, with belts 

 of wooded country in the vicinity, there the pigeon 

 makes itself at home, and builds its little platform of 

 sticks, to form its rude nest, in the forks of the high- 

 est trees, or in the recesses of the thickest groves, 

 As a boy, we have often watched the fir plantations 

 in spring time, near the home of our ancestors, to 

 find these nests, and when the parent bird flew panic- 

 stricken out from among the branches above our heads, 

 we have climbed up and found it there. Young wood- 

 pigeons, just before they are strong enough to fly away, 

 are excellent; and as the destruction the old birds do 

 to gardens etc., is very great, we never had any hesi- 

 tation about marking the place, and returning in the 

 nick of time to effect the capture of the poults, if they 

 were not ready to take when the nest was first dis- 

 covered. The young birds may have a piece of string 

 attached to one leg, and this passed through the nest 

 and made fast prevents them flying off too early, without 

 in any way hurting or injuring them. 



We have found the best way of shooting wood-pigeons 

 is to wait for them under the trees, where they go to 

 roost. These are easily found by watching their move- 



