94 THE BIRDS OF BERKS AND BUCKS. 



ORDER III. RASORES. 

 Family COLUMBID^E. 



TURTLE DOVE (Columba turtur). A regular sum- 

 mer visitor from Africa, arriving here about the be- 

 ginning of May, and leaving us again in September. 

 A few pairs breed every year in Windsor Forest ; near 

 Wantage the species is annually observed, as well as 

 in Ditton Woods, and in Langley and Stoke Parks. 

 The Rev. F. O. Morris states, on the authority of 

 Mr. Dalton, of Worcester College, Oxford, that the 

 Turtle Dove breeds in Bagley Wood, in Berk- 

 shire. 



I took a nest, five or six years ago, in Ashridge 

 Park, which is partly in Buckinghamshire and partly 

 in Hertfordshire ; these birds were not uncommon 

 there. It has been procured near Chesham, and Mr. 

 Sharpe includes it in his list of the birds of Cook- 

 ham. It is fairly numerous in the beautiful woods 

 at Cliefden, and in some of the plantations around 

 Reading its soft cooing may be heard. The Rev. 

 Charles Wolley told me of a Turtle Dove's nest 

 which was built in a tree in the Eton playing-fields, 



