296 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



distant ones, wandering no doubt from one district to 

 another in search of food, their numbers increasing as 

 they go. The Ring Dove often roosts in the branches 

 of the evergreens, and sometimes in the fir plantations. 

 As the sun is just about to disappear behind the horizon, 

 tipping the clouds with gold and filling the western sky 

 with bewitching colours, I often pause and watch these 

 birds retire to rest. As they fly over my head, their 

 flapping wings fill the air with pleasant sounds. Silently, 

 though on strong and rapid pinions, they wing their way, 

 spread hither and thither as they near the roosting place, 

 and, alighting in little parties in different parts of the 

 trees, settle down to rest. If October's month has waned 

 the birds are silent, for they lose their notes early in 

 that month, not to regain them till the following spring. 



It has often been asserted that the Ring Dove is the 

 original species from which our endless varieties of Dove- 

 cot Pigeons have descended ; but here I think is an 

 incontestable proof of the fallacy of this belief. The 

 domestic Pigeon, although it often perches on trees, has 

 perhaps never in one single instance been known to 

 roost in them. Further, by no artifice yet discovered 

 can we completely domesticate the Ring Dove, or tempt 

 him to breed in confinement. A bird of the forest, he 

 defies our every effort, and no doubt a bird of the forest 

 he will remain as long as his race exists, delighting in 

 its freedom, and rearing his young untrammelled by the 

 servitude of man in its arboreal depths, free as air, and 

 untamable as the winds of heaven. 



The food of the Ring Dove is confined for the most 

 part to vegetable matter, peas, beans, lintels, grain, and 

 small seeds of various kinds. They are voracious feeders, 

 too, their crops often containing upwards of two ounces 

 of various seeds. They frequent the newly sown land 



