I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy- 

 eighth year, who tells me that fifty or sixty years 

 back, when the beechen woods were much more ex- 

 tensive than at present, the number of wood-pigeons 

 was astonishing ; that he has often killed near twenty 

 in a day ; and that with a long wild-fowl piece he has 

 shot seven or eight at a time on the wing as they 

 came wheeling over his head ; he moreover adds, 

 which I was not aware of, that often there were 

 among them little parties of small blue doves, which 

 he calls rockiers. The food of these numberless emi- 

 grants was beech-mast and some acorns ; and partic- 

 ularly barley, which they collected in the stubbles. 

 But of late years, since the vast increase of turnips, 

 that vegetable has furnished a great part of their sup- 

 port in hard weather ; and the holes they pick in 

 these roots greatly damage the crop. From this food 

 their flesh has contracted a rancidness which occa- 

 sions them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, 

 who thought them before a delicate dish. They were 

 shot not only as they were feeding in the fields, and 

 especially in snowy weather, but also at the close of 

 the evening, by men who lay in ambush among the 

 woods and groves, to kill them as they came in to 

 roost. These are the principal circumstances relat- 

 ing to this wonderful internal migration, which with 

 us takes place towards the end of November, and 

 ceases early in the spring. Last winter we had in 

 Selborne high-wood about a hundred of these doves; 



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