112 DOVES OWLS. 



I hope they answered your expectation. Royston, or gray, 

 crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time 

 with the woodcock : they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have 

 no apparent reason for migration ; for, as they fare in the 

 winter like their congeners, so might they, in all appearance, 

 in the summer.* Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken V 

 Did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and take it for the nest 

 of a fieldfare ? 



The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, cenas Raii, is the last 

 winter bird of passage which appears with us, and is not seen 

 till towards the end of November. About twenty years ago, 

 they abounded in the district of Selborne, and strings of them 

 were seen morning and evening that reached a mile or more ; 

 but, since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned, they 

 have much decreased in number. The ring-dove, palumbus 

 Raii, stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times 

 through the summer, f 



Before I received your letter of October last, I had just 

 remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green. 

 This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November, and 

 may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist 

 summer, but more particularly from vast armies of chaffers, or 

 tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods to 

 a leafless naked state. These trees shot again at midsummer, 

 and then retained their foliage till very late in the year. 



My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has 

 tried all the owls that are his near neighbours, with a pitch- 



* The royston croxv, or chough, {pyrrhocorax graculus, of Temminck, ) 

 is not migratory. It is well known in Scotland, and also in England, all 

 the year round. In other countries, however, it appears to be migratory. 

 We are told that this bird has been observed to attend the inundation of 

 the Nile, in September and October. It is a widely diffused species, 

 being an inhabitant of the Alps, Siberia, and Persia. 



Colonel Montagu had one, which would stand quietly for hours to be 

 caressed ; and if an affront were offered to it, would resist the injury with 

 bill and claws. ED. 



*} Considerable confusion arises respecting the stock-dove and rock- 

 dove ; their history and individuality have been strangely confounded ; 

 some considering them as the same bird, and others as only varieties of 

 the same species. The stock-dove, columba cenas, is not migratory, as 

 White supposes, although it is limited to certain districts of the country. 

 It is common in Staffordshire, and some of the midland counties ; but it 

 has never been found in the northern parts of Britanny. The stock-dove 

 is abundant in southern Europe. It occurs also in Africa, but does not 

 extend to the southward of the tropic. Those of Germany and France 

 are, however, migratory. ED. 



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