260 BRITISH BIRDS 



powerful ; and before alighting, when it sweeps swiftly and silently 

 on its long, sharp-pointed wings through the glades of a wood, it 

 sometimes has a singularly hawk-like appearance. Even the wild 

 birds in the wood may be deceived by it, and thrown for a few 

 moments into a violent commotion. 



The wood-pigeon's familiar song may be heard in favourable 

 weather throughout the year, but its voice gains greatly in beauty 

 in the breeding season. In May and June the love-note of this 

 pigeon is one of the woodland sounds that never fail to delight the 

 ear. It commonly happens that birds improve in voice in the 

 season of courtship ; and not only do they acquire greater richness 

 and purity in their strains, but there is at this season an increased 

 beauty and grace in their gestures and motions, and in most species 

 the male indulges in pretty or fantastic antics a kind of love-dance, 

 in which he exhibits his charms to the female he is desirous of win- 

 ning. All doves have performances of this kind, and that of the 

 wood-pigeon is not the least graceful. On the ground, or on a branch, 

 he makes his curious display before the female, approaching her 

 with lowered head, and with throat and neck puffed out, in a suc- 

 cession of little hops, spreading his tail fanwise, and flirting his 

 wings so as to display their white bars. All at once he quits his 

 stand, and rising in the air to a height of thirty or forty yards, turns, 

 and glides downwards in a smooth and graceful curve. This mount- 

 ing aloft and circling descent is very beautiful to see, and produces 

 the idea that the bird has been suddenly carried away by an access 

 of glad emotion. 



Breeding begins in April, and, in very favourable seasons, even 

 as early as the first week in March. The nest is a slight platform 

 of slender sticks laid across each other on the smaller branches or 

 twigs of a tree, usually at a good height from the ground, and the 

 eggs are two, with pure white, glossy shells. Two, and sometimes 

 three, broods are reared in the season. 



The young are fed on a substance called ' pigeon's milk,' a thick 

 white, curd-like fluid, consisting of the partially digested food the 

 parent bird has swallowed, and which is regurgitated from its crop. 

 In feeding, the young bird thrusts its beak deep down into the 

 mouth of its parent and literally drinks. The pigeons alone among 

 birds feed their young in this way ; and they also differ from other 

 birds in drinking like mammals, taking a continuous draught 

 instead of a series of sips. 



