WOOD-PIGEONS AND WILD-FOWL 157 



selves simultaneously on either side of the tree, 

 some tricky shooting may be enjoyed. In this 

 way two of my brothers bagged thirty pigeons in 

 a couple of hours. 



When there is no corn available the diet of 

 wood-pigeons is as extraordinary as it is varied. 

 During the latter part of the winter, when root- 

 greens are scarce, and before the sowing of the 

 spring corn, pigeons will stuff themselves with the 

 tops of vetches, clover, and dandelions. When the 

 corn-feast is over, they will fill their crops with the 

 curious-stick-like roots of the wild anemones. Soon 

 after the beeches break into leaf you will notice 

 that they are much frequented by pigeons, which 

 feed gluttonously on their green tassel-like flowers. 

 I have seen the branches of an early-flowering beech 

 bowed down by a crowd of guzzling pigeons, so 

 thick that they jostled each other. When charlock 

 is about to bloom that is, when the spring corn is 

 ankle-high pigeons really do good by gorging 

 themselves on its buds. It is interesting to note 

 that pieces of charlock buds are the first food I have 

 found in the crops of very young wood-pigeons, in 

 addition to their parents' milk. I know that many 

 people will smile at the mention of pigeon's milk, 

 yet a section of a parent pigeon's crop seems not to 

 be different to a section of a doe rabbit that is 

 suckling young. Probably lack of the parental 

 milk explains why one cannot hand-rear pigeons 



