WILD PIGEONS. 275 



The stock-dove is gregarious in winter, like the ring-dove, 

 and feeds on beech-mast, &c., in the same way. They are 

 not found farther north than the midland counties of Eng- 

 land. They are beautifully shaped, and of a bluish -grey 

 colour, the males having a fine golden neck. Unlike the 

 other wild pigeons, their voice is a failure, being only a sort 

 of grunt. 



" Could it be known in what manner the stock-dove builds, 

 the doubt ' whether they are the origin of our domestic 

 pigeon ' would be settled with me at once." So writes White 

 of Selborne. It seems strange that this gifted naturalist 

 could not discover a single stock-dove's nest. They build 

 in hollow trees, decayed stumps, and stocks of pollards ; hence 

 their name. Every spring I have visited the south of Eng- 

 land, and searched the primeval forests favourable to their 

 breeding, I have found their nests. In such woods I have 

 listened sometimes to the ring-dove, the stock-dove, and the 

 turtle-dove, all calling at the same moment. White apparently 

 had not heard of the " blue rocks " of our coast. I shot a 

 pair of rock-doves right and left flying out of Nature's pigeon- 

 house a cave amongst the rocks of the Stonehaven coast 

 and the male is a fine contrast to a beautiful male stock-dove 

 in my case of wild pigeons. 



' The rock-dove (the true wild pigeon) is about the size of the 

 preceding, and has a white spot above the tail. I have often 

 met with them among the rocky caverns of the coast. They 

 fly with great rapidity, which may account for the name " blue 

 rocks," applied by the admirers of the pigeon-trap to their 

 fleetest birds. Both in the Caithness and Morayshire cliffs, 

 I have noticed some brown and light-coloured ; these, most 

 likely, had joined their wild associates from some pigeon- 

 house, although there were none within a distance of several 

 miles. This is the more likely, as the habits of the rock-doves 

 are exactly those of the domestic species. Their nests are 

 never fixed in trees, and when tame pigeons leave the dovecot, 



