STOCK DOTE. 165 



Their flight is exceedingly rapid. On first taking wing, 

 they clap their pinions together once or twice, which, when 

 many are in company, causes a considerable sound. On the 

 ground they are active and lively, running quickly in rather 

 an upright posture, with a stately deportment, nodding the 

 head at each step. They perch on trees, but the larger 

 branches only are suitable for their footing. 



Their food is composed of young green leaves, seeds of 

 plants and trees hemp, rape, and others, berries, beech-mast, 

 acorns, peas, and grain of various sorts. 



The note, mostly heard in the morning, but both at 'Night 

 and Morn,' is a repeated 'coo-oo-oo.' 



Nidification begins about the end of March, or the beginning 

 of April. 



The nest, which is flat and shallow a mere layer of a few 

 sticks slightly put together, is often placed on the ground in 

 an old deserted rabbit burrow, where any exist, and in this case 

 on the bare sand or earth, a few sticks being occasionally 

 used; and in such places under furze and other bushes, where 

 the surface is hollowed; also, ordinarily, in any suitable holes 

 in trees, from four or five feet to ten times that height from 

 the ground. The same hole is sometimes resorted to again, 

 but not the same year, and if disturbed by other would-be- 

 tenants, they stoutly defend their own: a second brood is 

 reared in the year. Incubation lasts about seventeen days, 

 and in about a month the young are able to fly. The parents 

 are very careful of the eggs, and will even sit on them till 

 taken off with the hand. James Dalton, Esq., of Worcester 

 College, Oxford, has found the nest of the Stock Dove in a 

 hollow of a decayed elm tree, something more than a foot 

 in depth, at Hillesden, near Buckingham; the nest was made 

 of hay or grass. Leaves are on occasion used likewise for 

 the purpose. 



The eggs, white, are smaller than those of the Queest, and 

 somewhat pointed at .the smaller end, but rounded on the 

 whole, and of an oval shape. 



Male; length, one foot two inches; bill, pale reddish orange 

 brown, the edges greyish yellow, the bare part round it pale 

 yellowish red; the cere, red, excepting the hind part, which is 

 white; iris, yellowish scarlet red; head and crown, bluish grey; 

 neck on the sides, glossy iridescent green and purple red; on 

 the back and nape, bluish grey; chin, bluish grey. Breast 

 above, brownish purple red, shading off downwards into bluish 



