106 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XLIV. 



SELBORNE, Nov. 30^, 1780. 



EVERY incident that occasions a renewal of our correspond- 

 ence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. 



As to the wild wood-pigeon, the cenas, or vinago, of 

 Ray, I am much of your mind; and see no reason for 

 making it the origin of the common house-dove : but 

 suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have 

 been misled by another appellation, often given to the cenas, 

 which is that of stock-dove. 



Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in 

 manners from itself in summer, no species seems more 

 unlikely to be domesticated, and to make a house-dove. 

 We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor does 

 it ever haunt the woods ; but the former, as long as it stays 

 with us, from November perhaps to February, lives the 

 same wild life with the ring-dove, Palumbus torquatus ; 

 frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly by 

 mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it 

 be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt 

 would be settled with me at once, provided they construct 

 their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect 

 they do. 



You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from 

 Sussex ; and are informed that they sometimes breed in 

 that county. But why did not your correspondent deter- 

 mine the place of its mdification, whether on rocks, cliffs, 

 or trees ? If he was not an adroit ornithologist I should 

 doubt the fact, because people with us perpetually confound 

 the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 



