7482 Birds. 



speak of the cuckoo incubating her own eggs and rearing her own 

 young : I believe Mr. Selby was the first author who explained away 

 these strange mis-statements. 



Ring Dove, Columba Palumbus. 



Situation. In fir trees, yew trees and ivy-clothed trees, also in ivy 

 covering the surface of rocks. " Hundreds of nests are built in 

 Epping Forest every year, in the branches of the pollard hornbeams 

 and in oaks; and also in the pollard elms in hedge-rows." — Mr. 

 Doubleday. " I have found many nests in the New Forest in old 

 whitethorns." — Mr. Bond. " A ring dove had fixed her nest in a low 

 furze-bush growing upon the slope of a considerable clay bank. The 

 twigs with which the nest was formed were in some places curiously 

 interwoven with the branches of the bush." — Mr. Duncan. Mr. 

 Edward relates (Zool. 2644) that he found a ring dove's nest on the 

 ground. 



Materials. Sticks and twigs laid together in a loose and careful 

 manner. I have often seen the eggs through the bottom of the nest. 



Eggs, 2, white. The young of this species, and perhaps of the 

 other doves, are fed with half-digested matter ejected from the crops 

 of the parents. " In ray morning rambles, last spring, I discovered a 

 nest of a ring dove in a young Scotch fir, containing three eggs, one 

 of them much less than the other two." — Mr. Walmsley (Zool. 222). 



Stock Dove, Columba JEnas. 



Situation. Cavities in the trunks of trees in Richmond Park, and 

 elsewhere in the South and East of England, as Hertfordshire, Nor- 

 folk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Surrey : also in rabbit-burrows. 

 " The stock dove occupies the deserted rabbit-burrows upon warrens ; 

 it places its pair of eggs about a yard from the entrance, generally 

 upon the bare sand, sometimes using a small quantity of dried roots, 

 &c., barely sufficient to keep the eggs from the ground : besides such 

 situations on the heaths, it nestles under thick furze-bushes which are 

 impervious to rain, in consequence of the sheep and rabbits eating off 

 the young and tender shoots as they grovr; the birds always preferring 

 those bushes that have a small opening, made by the rabbits, near the 

 ground." — Mr. Salmon. 



Materials. Sticks and roots. 



Eggs, 2. White and shining. 



Rock Dove, Columba Livia. 



Situation. Fissures and ledges of sea-cliffs : I have observed this 

 bird breeding at Oban in Argyleshire, in the Isle of Mull, and 

 other places on the west coast of Ireland. 



