186 NATURAL HISTORY 



Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in 

 manners from itself in summer, no species seems more 

 unlikely to be domesticated, and to make a house-dove. 

 We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor 

 does it ever haunt the woods ; but the former, as long 

 as it stays with us, from November perhaps to Febru- 

 ary, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove (Palum- 

 bus torquatus) ; frequents coppices and groves, supports 

 itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest 

 beeches. Could it be known in what manner stock- 

 doves build, the doubt would be settled with me at 

 once, provided they construct their nests on trees, like 

 the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do 3 . 



You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from 

 Sussex ; and are informed that they sometimes breed 

 in that county. But why did not your correspondent 

 determine the place of its nidification, whether on rocks, 

 cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an adroit ornithologist, I 

 should doubt the fact, because people with us perpetu- 

 ally confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 



For my own part, I readily concur with you in sup- 

 posing that house-doves are derived from the small 

 blue rock -pigeon, for many reasons. In the first place, 



Pennant thus evidently confounded the stock-dove with the small blue 

 rock-pigeon, and blended into one presumed species the Columba CEnns 

 and Col. Livia. 



The view taken by White is the correct one : that these two races are 

 distinct species ; and that the blue rock-pigeon is the parent of all the 

 domesticated varieties. But it is only very recently that ornithologists 

 have fully concurred in so regarding it : and it is possible that from time 

 to time the stock-dove will accidentally be referred to as the origin of 

 the domesticated pigeon by Englishmen, for to them will the error from 

 this source be confined. The two meanings of the word stock will still 

 occasionally mislead, and it will sometimes be forgotten that in this in. 

 stance it refers only to the trees which the bird haunts. E. T. B. 



3 The stock-dove, Columba CEnas, LINN., builds in trees : they are 

 called stock-doves because they make their nests in the stocks or rough 

 tops of trees that have been headed down. In default of trees to build 

 in, they take to rabbit burrows or other holes in the ground. The rock, 

 dove, Columba Liria, TEMM. is the origin of the domestic breeds and is 

 never seen to settle in a tree, unless wounded. W. Y. 



