116 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



they collected in the stubbles. But of late years, since the vast 

 increase of turnips, that vegetable has furnished a great part of 

 their support in hard weather ; and the holes they pick in these 

 roots greatly damage the crop. From this food their flesh has 

 contracted a rancidness which occasions them to be rejected by 

 nicer judges of eating, who thought them before a delicate dish. 

 They were shot not only as they were feeding in the fields, and 

 especially in snowy weather, but also at the close of the evening, 

 by men who lay in ambush among the woods and groves to kill 

 them as they came in to roost.* These are the principal circum- 

 stances relating to this wonderful internal migration, which with 

 us takes place towards the end of November, and ceases early in 

 the spring. Last winter we had in Selborne high wood about a 

 hundred of these doves ; but in former times the flocks were so 

 vast not only with us but all the district round, that on mornings 

 and evenings they traversed the air, like rooks, in strings, reach- 

 ing for a mile together. When they thus rendezvoused here by 

 thousands, if they happened to be suddenly roused from their 

 roost-trees on an evening, 



" Their rising all at once was like the sound 

 Of thunder heard remote." 



It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to add, 

 that I had a relation in this neighbourhood who made it a prac- 

 tice, for a time, whenever he could procure the eggs of a ring- 

 dove, to place them under a pair of doves that were sitting in 

 his own pigeon-house ; hoping thereby, if he could bring about 

 a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and teach his own doves to beat 

 out into the woods and to support themselves by mast ; the plan 

 was plausible, but something always interrupted the success ; for 

 though the birds were usually hatched, and sometimes grew to 

 half their size, yet none ever arrived at maturity. I myself have 

 seen these foundlings in their nest displaying a strange ferocity 

 ' of nature, so as scarcely to bear to be looked at, and snapping 

 with their bills by way of menace. In short, they always died, 

 perhaps for want of proper sustenance : but the owner thought 

 that by their fierce and wild demeanour they frighted their foster- 

 mothers, and so were starved.f 



* Some old sportsmen say that the main part of these flocks used to withdraw as soon as the 

 heavy Christmas frosts were over. 



t As in places where the cushat-pigeon (or ' ring-dove") is not disturbed, it has a decided 

 tendency to become rather tame during the breeding season, there can be little doubt that, by 

 rational management, it might be rendered almost domestic, though it would be manifestly .piitc 

 useless to expect it to breed in a dove-cot. They often become extremely tame, if reared froin 



