"Rock-pigeon 



LETTER XLIV. 



'To the same. 



SELBORNE, Nov. 30/4 1780. 



1AR SIR, Every incident that occasions a 

 renewal of our correspondence will ever be 

 pleasing and agreeable to me. 



As to the wild wood-pigeon, the QLnas, or 

 Vinago, of Ray, 1 I am much of your mind ; and 

 see no reason for making it the origin of the 

 common house-dove : but suppose those that 

 have advanced that opinion may have been misled by another 

 appellation, often given to the CEnas, which is that of stock-dove. 



Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners 

 from itself in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be domesti- 

 cated, and to make an house-dove. We very rarely see the latter 



1 The whole question of the relation of domesticated pigeons to the wild 

 stocks has been thoroughly investigated by Darwin, to whose classical researches 

 the reader must be referred for more modern information. ED. 



