PIGEONS. 189 



a different shade of colour, and the absence of that white 

 ring round the neck which marks a true wood pigeon. This 

 bird is perhaps less a dove of the high woods than the 

 cushat; it loves outskirts and open warrens, where, as often 

 as not, it utilizes a deserted rabbit burrow for a nesting- 

 place a curious fancy for a pigeon ! and deposits two 

 white eggs an arm's length down amongst black roots of 

 bracken and wire-tough fibres of ling. Both these latter 

 species, feeding together, are'often included in the same sweep 

 of a fowler's net and tumbled incontinentlj into his market 

 crate, while many worthy folk who see them on the poulterer's 

 hooks suspect no difference between their breed and that of 

 the ordinary pigeon of commerce. 



The rock dove of St. Abb's Head and the caverns of the 

 Cornish coast is the last English bird of this family. But 

 we have now in view some means, besides that of the gun, 

 by which wood pigeons may be induced to leave our tender 

 young turnip-tops alone, or may be checked in their larcenous 

 enterprises with relation to the expensive food we put out 

 in our woodland drives for the pheasants during the hard 

 weather. Amongst green crops, trapping the pigeons is 

 probably the best remedy to be adopted. If a few common 

 gins be set in the neighbourhood of the spots at which the 

 pigeons mostly congregate, birds are certain to be caught, 

 and so alarm the others that they will not return for some 

 time. Stretching pieces of stout cotton, to which feathers 

 or bits of red flannel are attached, is also very startling to 

 these fowl. For the open spaces in coverts, or in a drive or 

 clearing under trees where pigeons perch, a long, strong, 

 and springy ash or other pole, of about the thickness of 

 a man's wrist, is sometimes securely fastened down by one 

 end; the other loose end is then drawn as far back as 

 possible, and held there by a peg so placed as to be easily 

 withdrawn by a string held in a distant hiding-place. After 

 a few days' feeding with pheasant food, the wood pigeons will 

 come in great numbers. Food is scattered on the space 



