Columba and Palumbes. 221 



the columba ; but in the vast majority of passages 

 the columba is certainly either the domestic bird or 

 a wild bird of the same species, while palumbes is 

 some other kind of pigeon. 



Even in Virgil the distinction is maintained ; 

 for while palumbes breeds in the elm in the first 

 Eclogue, already quoted (which poem, it should 

 be noted, is genuinely north- Italian, and inde- 

 pendent of a Greek original), columba on the 

 other hand has her nest in a rock, as the follow- 

 ing well-known and beautiful passage will plainly 

 show 



Qualis spelunca subito commota columba, 

 Cui domus et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, 

 Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis 

 Dat tecto ingentem, mox acre lapsa quieto 

 Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas. 



And in the same fifth Aeneid, the bird which 

 served as a target in the archery contest a 

 domestic bird, we may suppose was a columba, 

 not a palumbes. 



Now it is a fact almost universally recognized 

 by modern ornithologists that our domestic pigeon 

 is in all its varieties descended from the wild 

 Rock-dove ; and thus when we find that the 



