WOOD-PIGEONS, 115 



by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it 

 be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would 

 be settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests on 

 trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do. 



You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex ; 

 and are informed that they sometimes breed in that county. 

 But why did not your correspondent determine the place of its 

 nidification, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an 

 adroit ornithologist I should doubt the fact, because people with 

 us perpetually confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 



For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that 

 house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for 

 many reasons. In the first place the wild stock-dove is mani- 

 festly larger than the common house-dove, against the usual rule 

 of domestication, which generally enlarges the breed. Again, 

 those two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each wing of 

 the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of the species, would 

 not, one should think, be totally lost by its being reclaimed ; but 

 would often break out among its descendants.* But what is 

 worth a hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir 

 Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvonshire ; which, though 

 tempted by plenty of food and gentle treatment, can never be 

 prevailed on to inhabit their cote for any time ; but, as soon as 

 they begin to breed, betake themselves to the fastnesses of 

 Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety amidst the inacces- 

 sible caverns and precipices of that stupendous promontory. 



" Naturam expel las f urea . . . tamen usque recurret." 



I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, 

 who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen 

 woods were much more extensive than at present, the number of 

 wood-pigeons was astonishing; that he has often killed near 

 twenty in a day ; and that with a long wild-fowl piece he has 

 shot seven or eight at a time on the wing as they came wheeling 

 over his head : he moreover adds, which I was not aware of, that 

 often there were among them little parties of small blue doves, 

 which he calls rockiers. The food of these numberless emigrants 

 was beech-mast and some acorns ; and particularly barley, which 



* A very good argument, as is sufficiently exemplified by the fact that the two conspicuous 

 black bars on the wing of the wild rock-pigeon may be observed in many individuals of all its 

 numerous domestic varieties. The simple circumstance of the house-pigeon never perching upon 

 trees is of itself demonstrative of its distinctness from the C. renew. ED. 



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