DOVES. 127 



manner stock-doves build, the doubt would be set- 

 tled with me at once, provided they construct their 

 nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much 

 suspect they do, 



You received, you say, last spring, a stock- dove 

 from Sussex ; and are informed that they some- 

 times breed in that county. But why did not 

 your correspondent determine the place of its nidi- 

 fication, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he 

 was not an adroit ornithologist I should doubt the 

 fact, because people with us perpetually confound 

 the stock- dove with the ring-dove. 



For my own part, I readily concur with you in 

 supposing that house- doves are derived from the 

 small blue rock-pigeon, for many reasons. In the 

 first place, the wild stock- dove is manifestly larger 

 than the common house- dove, against the usual 

 rule of domestication, which generally enlarges 

 the breed. Again, those two remarkable black 

 spots on the remiges of each wing of the stock- 

 dove, which are so characteristic of the species, 

 would not, one should think, be totally lost by 

 its being reclaimed; but would often break out 

 among its descendants. But what is worth a hun- 

 dred arguments, is the instance you give in Sir 

 Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvonshire ; 

 which, though tempted by plenty of food and gen- 

 tle treatment, can never be prevailed on to inhabit 

 their cote for any time ; but, as soon as they begin 

 to breed, betake themselves to the fastnesses of 

 Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety 

 amidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices of 

 that stupendous promontory. 



" Naturam expellas furca . . . tamen usque recurret." 



I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy- 

 eighth year, who tells me that fifty or sixty years 



