RO:tIAN CAMP TO ATHELSTAXEFORD. 117 



wasted by careless and slovenly farming : they eat 

 wild mustard, charlock, silver-weed^ goose-grass, and 

 other seeds which would become weeds, as well as the 

 roots of tanzy in limestone ; and they divert atten- 

 tion from the melancholy cry of the cuckoo." 



Mr. Skirving considers that the ^'balance of power" 

 of which the wood-pigeon was said to be so conserva- 

 tive has been completely destroyed, and thus argues 

 the point : ^' In the first place, it is only since im- 

 proved cultivation introduced its clovers and early 

 spring crops that the wood-pigeon has been attracted 

 in such numbers from more northern districts ; and, 

 in the second place, the ^ balance of power^ was de- 

 stroyed when game preservators almost extirpated 

 our birds of prey, and in particular the magpie. 

 Those writers who think that because the wood- 

 pigeon feeds on wild seeds as well as grain it is there- 

 fore innoxious are entirely in error. The bird is an 

 epicure as well as a glutton, and its weeds bear the 

 same proportion to its corn that Falstaff^s half-penny 

 worth of bread did to his intolerable amount of sack. 

 As illustrating the wood-pigeon^s powers of destruc- 

 tion in winter, I may mention that some years ago I 

 had twenty acres of rape- seed, Avhich was attacked 

 by such multitudes that, though the man sent to 

 watch it killed twelve hundred in one week, yet the 

 pigeons won the battle, and ate up every particle of 

 the crop. Then in summer, though each bird has his 

 crop crammed with corn till it resembles a cricket- 

 .ball, the food consumed bears no proportion to the 



