but in former times the flocks were so vast, not only 

 with us but all the district round, that on mornings 

 and evenings they traversed the air, like rooks, in 

 strings, reaching for a mile together. When they 

 thus rendezvoused here by thousands, if they hap- 

 pened to be suddenly roused from their roost-trees 

 on an evening, 



" Their rising all at once was like the sound 

 Of thunder heard remote." 



It will by no means be foreign to the present pur- 

 pose to add, that I had a relation in this neighbour- 

 hood who made it a practice, for a time, whenever 

 he could procure the eggs of a ring-dove, to place 

 them under a pair of doves that were sitting in his 

 own pigeon-house ; hoping thereby, if he could bring 

 about a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and teach his 

 own doves to beat out into the woods and to sup- 

 port themselves by mast ; the plan was plausible, 

 but something always interrupted the success ; for 

 though the birds were usually hatched, and some- 

 times grew to half their size, yet none ever arrived at 

 maturity. I myself have seen these foundlings in 

 their nest displaying a strange ferocity of nature, so 

 as scarcely to bear to be looked at, and snapping with 

 their bills by way of menace. In short, they always 

 died, perhaps from want of proper sustenance ; but 

 the owner thought that by their fierce and wild de- 

 meanour they frighted their foster-mothers, and so 



were starved. 



146 



