70 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



another; and so there is a constant fluttering and 

 motion above the ash-poles. The number of wood- 

 pigeons breeding here must be immense. Later on, 

 if you walk among the ash, you may find a nest 

 every half-dozen yards. It is formed of a few twigs 

 making a slender platform, on which the glossy white 

 egg is laid, and where the bird will sit till you literally 

 thrust her off her nest with your walking-stick. Such 

 slender platforms, if built in the hedgerow, so soon as 

 the breeze comes would assuredly be dashed to 

 pieces ; but here the wind only touches the tops of 

 the poles, and causes them to sway gently with a 

 rattling noise, and the frail nest is not injured. When 

 the pigeon or dove builds in the more exposed hedge- 

 rows the nest is stronger, and more twigs seem to be 

 used, so that it is heavier. 



Boys steal these eggs by scores, yet it makes no 

 difference apparently to the endless numbers of these 

 birds, who fill the wood with their peculiar hoarse 

 notes, which some country people say resemble the 

 words - Take two cows, Taffy.' The same good folk 

 will have it that when the weather threatens rain the 

 pigeon's note changes to ' Joe's toe bleeds, Betty.' 

 The boys who steal the eggs have to swarm up the 

 ash-poles for the purpose, and in so doing often stain 

 their clothes with red marks. Upon the bark of the 



