132 NATURAL HISTORY 



dove; but suppose those that have advanced that opinion 

 may have been misled by another appellation, often given 

 to the (EnaSy which is that of stock-dove. 



Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in 

 manners from itself in summer, no species seems more un- 

 likely to be domesticated and to make a house-dove. We 

 very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor does it 

 ever haunt the woods ; but the former, as long as it stays 

 with us, from November perhaps to February, lives the 

 same wild life with the ring-dove (Palumbus torquatus) ; l 

 frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly by 

 mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it 

 be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt 

 would be settled with me at once, provided they construct 

 their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect 

 they do. 2 



You received, you say, last spring a stock- dove from 

 Sussex, and are informed that they sometimes breed in that 

 county. But why did not your correspondent determine 

 the place of its nidification, whether on rocks, cliffs, or 

 trees ? If he was not an adroit ornithologist, I should 

 doubt the fact, because people with us perpetually confound 

 the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 3 



For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing 

 that house-doves are derived from the small blue rock- 



1 Columba palumbus, LINN. 



2 The stock-dove, Columba anas, LINN., so called from its habit 

 of building in stocks or pollards, nests also in deserted rabbit burrows, 

 and even under thick furze bushes, where openings near the ground 

 have been made by rabbits. Mr. Salmon, in his notice of Norfolk 

 birds (" London's Mag. Nat. Hist.," vol. ix. p. 520), says he has 

 known the stock-dove to make its nest high up in a fir tree, like the 

 ring-dove ; but this was undoubtedly an exceptional case. It has fallen 

 to the lot of the writer on different occasions to find stock-doves nesting 

 in a church spire (cf. "The Ibis," 1867, p. 379, and "Zoologist," 

 1867, p. 758) and even in limestone rocks facing the sea (cf. " The 

 Field," 14th April, 1866). In both instances the young were taken 

 and reared, and the identity of the species thus placed beyond 

 doubt. ED. 



3 Pennant confounded the stock-dove with the rock-dove, Columba 

 livia, TEMM. and made one species of them. ED. 



