OF SELBORNE. 187 



the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger than the com 

 rnon house-dove, against the usual rule of domestica- 

 tion, which generally enlarges the breed. Again, those 

 two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each 

 wing of the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of 

 the species, would not, one should think, be totally lost 

 by its being reclaimed ; but would often break out among 

 its descendants. But what is worth a hundred argu- 

 ments is, the instance you give in Sir Roger Mostyn's 

 house-doves in Caernarvonshire; which, though tempted 

 by plenty of food and gentle treatment, can never be 

 prevailed on to inhabit their cote for any time ; but, as 

 soon as they begin to breed, betake themselves to the 

 fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in 

 safety amidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices 

 of that stupendous promontory. 



" Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret." 



I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy- 

 eighth year, who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, 

 when the beechen woods were much more extensive 

 than at present, the number of wood-pigeons was asto- 

 nishing ; that he has often killed near twenty in a day ; 

 and that, with a long wildfowl piece, he has shot seven 

 or eight at a time on the wing, as they came wheeling 

 over his head : he moreover adds, which I was not 

 aware of, that often there were among them little par- 

 ties of small blue doves, which he calls rockiers. The 

 food of these numberless emigrants was beech mast and 

 some acorns ; and particularly barley, which they col- 

 lected in the stubbles. But, of late years, since the 

 vast increase of turnips, that vegetable has furnished a 

 great part of their support in hard weather ; and the 

 holes they pick in these roots greatly damage the crop. 

 From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness 

 which occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of 

 eating, who thought them before a delicate dish. They 

 were shot not only as they were feeding in the fields, 



