RINGDOVE OR WOOD PIGEON. 213 



the appearance of being inserted on the inner side of the foot; and 

 the whole organ is thus admirably adapted for its designed use. 



" It is worthy of remark, as tending to corroborate my theory, 

 that there are one or two Australian species (Podargus and 

 sEgothales), and at least one in South America, which have the 

 middle claw smooth and the hind toe directed backwards. This 

 variation in structure leads, as might be expected, to a corresponding 

 difference in the use of the organ; and we consequently find that 

 they do not perch sideways, but across, and also hop from bough 

 to bough." 



This curious bird has been taken in Shetland, and also in Orkney, 

 where, according to Baikie and Heddle, two or three specimens 

 were obtained upwards of forty years ago. 



R A SORES. COLUMBID^E. 



RINGDOVE OR WOOD PIGEON. 



COLUMBA PALUMBUS. 

 Snmdan. Caluman choille. 



THE Wood Pigeon is a bird now so widely distributed throughout 

 Scotland, that most persons must be familiar with it, both as an 

 inhabitant of wooded preserves, and a frequenter of farmed lands. 

 But though at the present day it exists in very great numbers in 

 cultivated districts, its first appearance is an event actually within 

 the recollection of old people now living in the county in which 

 the species is most abundant. In East Lothian the Wood Pigeon 

 is perhaps more numerously met with than elsewhere in Great 

 Britain, yet it is not more than 80 years since it was quite 

 unknown. Mr Hepburn, in referring to this fact in a very inter- 

 esting paper published by him in the proceedings of the Berwick- 

 shire Naturalists' Club for 1848, says: "I am acquainted with a 

 man, now 65 years of age, whose bird-nesting days were spent in 

 the woods near Gifford, and he states that the Wood Pigeons were 

 then so very rare that the discovery of a nest was looked upon as 

 a great feat ; and there are several people in the parish of Dirleton 

 who remember having gone to look at a Wood Pigeon feeding in 

 a cottage garden during the long snow storm of 1791." Mr Hep- 

 burn also states that " the appearance and subsequent increase of 



