WOOD-PIGEONS AND WILD-FOWL 161 



he had brought me, I declared peace till the follow- 

 ing season. 



Wood - pigeons, much to the credit of their 

 digestive powers, eat many hazel-nuts, shell and 

 all. I have seen thirty-eight fine nuts in the crop 

 of one pigeon. When acorns are scarce and nuts 

 numerous, pigeons give rather novel shooting as 

 they flap up from grubbing for nuts among the dead 

 leaves. And they are easier to shoot then, in the 

 same way that a walked-up partridge is easier than 

 a driven one ; of course, they are still quite easy 

 enough to miss. Another point in favour of this 

 kind of shooting is that you keep walking round the 

 rides of a wood, and are spared even cold feet. 

 Cold feet, and cold fingers that is the worst of 

 most forms of winter pigeon-shooting. In winter 

 huge flocks of home-bred pigeons, augmented by 

 thousands of visitors, feast on the greens of roots, 

 preferring those of rape and turnips. But unless 

 root-fields are few and far between, or snow covers 

 other food, the thousands of pigeons which may rise 

 from a field on your arrival are not likely to return 

 often enough to make it worth while waiting ; they 

 wisely prefer to go to another field. 



When pigeons have been living for some time on 

 an exclusive diet of root-greens their flesh has a 

 pronounced flavour, though, like that of venison, 

 its smell is worse than its taste. Greens quickly 

 ferment, and the sooner they are removed from a 



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