274 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



feed. He always flew over the wall into the garden where 

 the dovecot was placed. Sometimes, after filling his crop, 

 he lingered with the other pigeons nearly the whole day, but 

 never stayed over night. I had the curiosity to watch him 

 in the twilight, in order to find out his sleeping - quarters. 

 After several " doubles," he at last roosted on an old apple 

 pollard in a neighbouring garden, returning every night to 

 the same branch of the same tree. At last he became tame 

 enough to pick grain out of my hand. As he was evidently 

 a bird of the year, I rather think he must have been taken 

 from the nest, and kept in a cage, but, having made his 

 escape, hunger may have forced him to beg a meal. Poor 

 fellow ! his departure was as sudden and mysterious as his 

 advent. We missed him one morning, and he was never seen 

 again. 



The next in size to the ring-dove is the wild pigeon, or 

 stock-dove. Considerable mistakes seem to have arisen about 

 this bird, some fancying it altogether migratory, and others 

 confounding it with the rock-dove, and tracing it as the origin 

 of the domestic pigeon. The habits of the stock-dove are 

 very different from those of the latter. They are always in 

 summer met with in pairs, perching upon old trees, and 

 building their nests in the decayed hollows. I found two 

 myself in the grounds of Park Place in Berkshire, where a 

 few stock-doves flock and roost with the ring-doves every 

 winter. I had several times seen one of the pairs before the 

 hatching-time. They were very wild, and flew more rapidly 

 than ring-doves. About a month after I stumbled upon the 

 nest in the fork of an aged tree. It was only about ten 

 feet from the ground, and I might have shot the female at 

 any time flying off; the other nest was near the top of an 

 ivy-girt birch. These birds, as well as most of the pigeon 

 tribe, lay two eggs, generally a male and a female. Hence 

 the Scotch phrase, when there are only a son and daughter of 

 a family, " a doo's nest." 



