THE STOCK-DOVE AND THE ROCK-DOVE 



is that of damage to bean and pea fields, and to mustard-fields when 

 the seed is ripe, and this likin- tor mustard it shares in common with 

 the turtle-do\. \\hile the \vood-pigeoo appears nirely, if ever, to eat 

 i]\i *< M-eds; but the harm wrought jx not great, and seems to be more 

 than atoned for by the great quantities of charlock seeds consumed by 

 thesr hirds and of \\hieh they are especially fond. The rock-dove, 

 being nowhere HO abundant as the stock-dove, a fact sufficiently ex- 

 plained by its conservative habits, its numbers are not sufficiently great 

 to enable it to commit "ravages "on the fanners' crops, even though 

 it be compelled to fly inland for the greater part of its food. Like its 

 congeners, it is partial to grain, but it atones for this weakness by eating 

 the roots of the couch-grass (Agropryon reperut) and the seeds of 

 numerous troublesome weeds, as well as large quantities of snails. 

 The bird's-foot trefoil is among the seeds which it specially favours. 



Like its congeners the rock-dove drinks frequently, and in 

 Egypt, in placet where the banks of the Nile are so steep that the 

 birds cannot alight on the shore to drink, both Mr. R 8. Skirving and 

 Mr. E. C. Taylor have observed whole flocks settle on the water like 

 gulls and drink while they floated down-stream : and the same habit 

 has been observed in tame pigeons at Cologne when the shore-ice in 

 the Rhine prevented approach to the water. Unlike most birds the 

 head is not raised during the act of drinking. 



Of its habits we have yet much to learn, for it has been, and 

 still is, commonly confused with the stock-dove, and consequently 

 records from places frequented by both species are to be regarded 

 as requiring revision. At all times gregarious, it is not a migratory 

 bird, though in hard weather it will wander from its usual haunts, 

 sometimes in great flocks. 



That this is the bird from which all our varieties of domesticated 

 pigeons have been derived is certain, and if only for this reason the 

 rock-dove is a species of quite peculiar interest As we have already 

 remarked, it never alights in trees, a peculiarity shared by its domesti- 

 cated descendants, and is rarely found away from surf-beaten cliffs. 



