186 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



on a fine morning as he can, which, in a fir wood, means on 

 the leaders of the trees at that season young and tender. 

 In the leader of a young fir is centred all the promise of a 

 clean, straight stem, pointing direct from the axis of the 

 earth to the zenith. When this is bent aside, the tendency, 

 especially of all the Picea or silver fir tribe, is to send up 

 several leaders ; the result being seen in double or treble 

 stems, instead of one fair clean shaft. Therefore the wood 

 pigeons, which are less easily kept under control than rabbits, 

 may be looked on as injurious to young fir woods to some 

 small extent. But it is not every fir they perch upon even 

 in a forest of larch and spruce, nor can we think any but a 

 very small proportion of these resinous little apexes would 

 be permanently distorted by their weight. More often plan- 

 tations are of several sorts of trees, the beech and aspen over- 

 topping the firs, at least while the latter are young and tender. 

 The highest trees, again, in a wood are often the stunted, 

 worthless little bushes that crown some rocky knoll clothed 

 with fern and foxglove. If a legion of pigeons were to perch 

 on such a spot for a month, the damage done would not 

 amount to the value of the good white paper wasted by him 

 who first made the accu-sation ! I cannot think this indict- 

 ment is a very important one. 



And then what a pleasant bird the wood pigeon is, and 

 surely of more account than many timber merchants ! Cop- 

 pice and hanger would lose half their attraction without his 

 presence, the loud beat of his wings as he takes to flight, 

 or the flash of his blue plumage where the sun comes down 

 through the branches. Truly the ring dove is not much of a 

 game bird, though I have stalked him when I first began to 

 shoot with all the patient ardour of a Red Indian, and held 

 him a well-earned trophy at the end of an hour's watch. 



He is most off his guard and I betray him with some 

 reluctance when returning at night to his fir trees, and by 

 standing quietly beneath them as the birds circle round and 

 drop down into the deep shadows, many a gallant pie may be 



