aos BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 



and like all birds that have a powerful flight, their first plumage, which is 

 grown in the nest, is as powerful as the second, and is not moulted until the 

 autumn, but before the first moult they have no white on the sides of the neck. 



Family- 



THE STOCK- DOVE. 



Colnmba anas. LlNN. 



THE Stock-Dove, though found in many parts of England, is more local 

 in its distribution than the Wood-Pigeon. It was said not to occur 

 in Scotland or in Ireland, but to be confined to the Midland and Eastern 

 counties ; but, as Mr. Howard Saunders states, its range northwards is rapidly 

 extending, and whereas its breeding in Stirlingshire was considered remarkable a 

 few years ago, it is now known to have nested in the sand-hills along the Moray 

 and Dornoch Firths, and has even reached the Orkneys ; and in Ireland, at the 

 present time, it is resident in the north-east. 



In its habits it very much resembles its larger relative, the Wood-Pigeon, but 

 is lighter on the wing, and forms its nest, not on the branches of trees, but in 

 rabbit burrows, in hollow trees, or under thick furze bushes. Like its congener 

 it feeds on grain, seeds, acorns, and beech mast, and where numerous is a 

 considerable pest to the farmer. The Stock- Dove offers a good example of the 

 changes in locality that often characterize birds. It has increased very much in 

 the western counties, and the late Mr. Cecil Smith stated that it was twenty 

 times more numerous in Somersetshire than it was a quarter of a century ago. 

 Its young are valued for the table and are ready in the month of June, the 

 warreners, in the rabbit warrens where they abound, keeping dogs trained to 

 discover the burrows in which the Doves breed. 



