CHAPTER XLVL WINGED VERMIN. 



THE WOOD PIGEON. 



wood pigeon is, in the strict sense of the word, 

 JL not vermin at all, but, inasmuch as it is a most 

 troublesome farm pest, and requires some skill in order 

 to capture it, we have included it in this category. This 

 bird is, no doubt, a great favourite in its way, but, unfor- 

 tunately, is possessed of habits which continually bring it 

 into disrepute with the farmer, and are really of too serious 

 a nature to be overlooked by him, more especially in these 

 distressful days of agricultural depression. It is chiefly 

 the growing crops which suffer from its depredations, and 

 in those districts which, being thickly wooded, are most 

 conducive to a multiplicity of wood pigeons, it becomes so 

 numerous as to frequently cause considerable anxiety to 

 the agriculturist in the matter of his spring-sown corn and 

 the like. It is, moreover, a bird of remarkably voracious 

 appetite, and it appears decidedly of epicurean tastes, the 

 young corn, tender plantings of succulent kind, &c., being 

 always held by it in better esteem than food more matured 

 and less savory. In the early part of the year the various 



