WOOD-PIGEONS AND WILD-FOWL 155 



crop while there is wheat to be had. On the other 

 hand, the turtle-doves, close relations of pigeons, 

 may be seen feeding soon after they arrive on 

 charlock seeds, where a rick has been threshed, in 

 preference to a wealth of wasted corn. 



I have had good pigeon-shooting in favoured 

 fields of wheat after it has been cut and shocked, 

 also near patches of vetches and peas ; but at 

 harvest-time there is such a wealth of food almost 

 everywhere that it is seldom easy to discover 

 a good place to stand. I found one rather too 

 exciting exception. I was waiting at the corner 

 of a wood next to a field of 'shocked* wheat to 

 which pigeons were doing no good. Owing to 

 frequent rain, there had been an unusual delay 

 in getting in the harvest, and this wheat had 

 become soft and sweet, as corn about to grow out 

 does this doubtless was why the pigeons had a 

 special liking for it. There was a strong north- 

 west wind blowing from the wood, and I had 

 noticed that the pigeons I disturbed from the 

 wheat-shocks tacked their way back to the wood, 

 so that they all entered it within fifty yards or 

 so of the corner. Here I soon made a convenient 

 screen by draping the angle of a wire-netting rabbit 

 fence with some long ash-shoots and bracken. I 

 got an occasional shot, but most of the pigeons 

 preferred to sit in the wood behind me, evidently 

 having fed their fill in view of a coming thunder- 



