CHAP, i.] AND FATTING-PLACES. 27 



ciety and neighbourhood, rarely perch upon trees, but 

 regard rocks and buildings, especially those that are 

 ancient or ruined, as if they were one and the same 

 thing, or as if shifting their haunts from one to the 

 other was but a natural step. A wild Cormorant, that 

 most docile of birds, has been known to alight on the 

 grey battlements of King's College, Cambridge, mis- 

 taking them for the pinnacles of hoary rocks ; and so 

 the Rock Dove, or blue Dovehouse Pigeon, for these 

 are identical, may be known from the Stock-dove by its 

 seldom or never perching upon branches. Thus in 

 Jeremiah xlviii. 28 : "0 ye that dwell in Moab, leave 

 the cities, and dwell in the rock, and be like the Dove 

 that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth." 

 The Doves that " fly to their windows," in Isaiah, had 

 only made an instinctive change of abode : and the 

 Chaonian towers above-mentioned were, we should say, 

 tenanted by a set of birds whom a very slight affront 

 would have driven back into the wilderness. 



The Romans kept domestic Pigeons very much in 

 the same way that we do ; and in addition to this were 

 in the habit of catching the wild species, such as the 

 Ring Dove and the Common Turtle, and fatting them 

 in confinement as we do Quails and Ortolans. 



" The attempt to breed Turtles is superfluous : for 

 that genus neither lays nor hatches in an aviary. As 

 soon as it is caught from the wild state, it is destined 

 to be crammed, and that with less trouble than other 

 birds are fatted, but not at all seasons. In the winter, 

 although pains be taken, it is with difficulty made to 

 thrive : and yet, because Thrushes are then in greater 

 plenty, the price of Turtles is lower. In the Summer 

 again it most readily fattens, so there is but plenty of 



