PIGEONS, JAYS AND NUTCRACKERS. 139 



Section III. — Pigeons and Doves. 

 1. Damage Done. 



Wood-pigeons and doves eat u-p forest seeds, especially of 

 spruce and Scots pine, also buds, catkins, etc. The wood- 

 pigeon and the stock-dove in autumn also eat acorns, beech- 

 mast and beech cotyledons. Turtle-doves eat-up seedlings, 

 doing most damage in March, and from April to October, 

 when they often alight in flocks on sowings. 



The wood-pigeon, the largest kind, prefers coniferous forest 

 (spruce) ; the stock-dove, beech and mixed forest of broad- 

 leaved and coniferous species ; the turtle-dove, the smallest 

 kind, lives near water in small woods among fields and 

 meadows. The wood-pigeon is one of the worst enemies to 

 agriculture. 



2. Protective Rides. 



Those already given under the general heading apply here. 

 Scarecrows are only useful at first, as the birds soon get used 

 to them. Strewing seed-beds with spruce-needles instead of 

 moss protects against turtle-doves. Shooting is best done at 

 the breeding season with decoys, or over salt. Small vessels 

 containing salted clay, anise, hempseed or wheat are placed 

 here and there over the endangered sowings, and the pigeons 

 flying down to them are shot. 



Section IV. — Jays and Nutcrackers. 



1. ]>ania(ie Done. 



The jai/ is extremely destructive, eating acorns, beech-nuts, 

 walnuts, hazel-nuts, cherries and other fruit, digging-up ger- 

 minating beech-nuts and young oaks to eat their cotyledons. 

 It also destroys the young and eggs of other birds, and even 

 attacks new-born hares. Once it has discovered a sowing of 

 acorns, it will completely strip the bed. In acorn sowings in 

 the Forest of Dean in 1899, it was found that, when the turf 

 was broken up over the lines of sowings, the birds picked up 

 most of the acorns. When the turf was taken up and 



