LETTER XLIV 



TO THE SAME 



SKLBORNE, Nov. y*th, 1780. 



DEAR SIR, Every incident that occasions a renewal 

 of our correspondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable 

 to me. 



As to the wild wood-pigeon, the cenas, or vinago, of 

 Ray, 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 

 cenas, 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 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. 1 



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 deter- 

 mine the place of its nidification, whether on rocks, cliffs, 



1 See Letter XXXIX (antea, p. 166). [R. B. S.] 



