OF SELBORNE 91 



As to the wild wood-pigeon, the oenas, or vinago, of Ray, 1 I am 

 much of your mind ; and see no reason for making it the origin 

 of the common house-dove : but suppose those that have advanced 

 that opinion may have been misled by another appellation, often 

 given to the oenas, which is that of stock-dove. 



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 an 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 February, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove, palumbus 

 tor qua! us ; 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. 



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

 are informed that they sometimes breed in that country. But 

 why did not your correspondent determine the place of it's nidi- 

 ncation, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an 

 adroit ornithologist I should doubt the fact, because people with 

 us perpetually confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 



For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that 

 house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many 

 reasons. 2 In the first place the wild stock-dove is manifestly 

 larger than the common house-dove, against the usual rule of 

 domestication, 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 it's being reclaimed ; but 

 would often break out among its descendants. But what is 

 worth an hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir 

 Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvonshire ; which, though 



1 \Columba oenas, L. White evidently regarded this species as the most abun- 

 dant which frequented Selborne, but only as a winter " internal " migrant. Borrer 

 (Birds of Sussex, p. 178) says that it assembles in large flocks in the winter. It breeds 

 in great numbers in trees, cliffs, and even in rabbit-burrows (as, e.g., at Lulworth) 

 along the south coast, and packs in autumn, with the ring-dove, to feed in woods 

 and fields. See Letter XXXIX. to Pennant.] 



2 [In this passage White foreshadowed both the argument and the conclusion 

 of Darwin (see Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. i., chap. vi.). There 

 is now no doubt that the domestic pigeon is descended from the small rock-dove 

 (Columba livia, L. ), or that the name stock-dove is derived from stock = free, and not 

 stock = race. White's observation and perspicuity are nowhere better illustrated than 

 in this .letter.] 



