758 The Zoologist— May, 1867. 



this regulation is a large increase in the number of our small birds to what it was some 

 few years ago, when a different policy was pursued, and every nest discovered by the 

 gardener was ruthlessly lorn from the branches and thrown into the river. — H. W. 

 Feilden. 



Stock Doves Breeding in a Church. — You will be interested lo hear of an unusual 

 situation for a stock dove's nest. The spire of the old village church here is a wooden 

 one, and has for many a day giveu shelter to a loving couple of white owls and several 

 pairs of starlings, not to mention the noisy sparrows which have taken possession of the 

 water-spouts. During the summer of 1865 I often remarked a pair of pigeons flying 

 out from a good-sized hole at the base of the spire. They looked like stock doves, but 

 the scarcity of this species here in the breeding season, as well as the unlikely situation 

 which they had selected, caused me to think at the time that they could he only a pair 

 of escaped blue rocks. I could easily have shot one of the birds as he flew out, and 

 thus settled the question, but I was anxious to prove something more. An inspection 

 of the interior of the church, which I unfortunately delayed until the summer was far 

 advanced, showed that a nest, evidently that of a pigeon, had been built upon a cross- 

 beam above the bells. I was too late then for the eggs ; the young had flown. There 

 was nothing for it, therefore, but to wait until the following spring, and then endeavour 

 to secure a pair of young birds. Accordingly, jotting down a memorandum in my 

 note-book, and resolving to keep the fact of there being pigeons in the church spire to 

 myself, I waited patiently for another nesting season. My patience has been so far 

 rewarded that, after watching a pair of birds take up their quarter in the same site as 

 that selected the previous year, and after several anxious visits of inspection, I was at 

 length enabled, in July, 1 806, to carry off a pair of fine young pigeons, which were 

 almost ready lo fly. The "coo" of the stock dove is very peculiar, and by this time 

 I had heard and seen enough of the birds in question to convince me that they 

 belonged to this species. Their young, which I had secured, after being fed for some 

 time in a cage in the house, were transferred to my aviary. They are now in fine 

 plumage, and have proved, as I suspected, to be undoubtedly the young of Columba 

 a?nas. — J. E. Hurting ; Kingsbury, Middlesex. 



Food of the Wood Pigeon. — Having read the communications of Mr. Blake-Knox 

 and Mr. Cordeaux, in the 'Zoologist' of last month, with reference to the food of the 

 wood pigeon (S. S. 593), I fully agree with them both. Here also they visited our 

 turnip and rape fields during the severe wcalher of January, and made a field of the 

 latter quite bare, by eating off the leaves and leaving nothing but stalks. In the 

 winter of 1865-60 I shot a wood pigeon which had ninety -eight beech-nuts in its crop. 

 — R. M. Barringlon ; Fasstiroe, Bray, Co. Wicklow, April 3, 1867. 



Red Grouse and Willoiv Grouse. — I have just seen Mr. Doubleday's remarks on 

 the willow grouse (Zool. S. S. 707). In one of my former communications touching 

 the identity of this with the British red grouse, I believe I mentioned that in the young 

 birds up to the first moult the plumage of the two were undistinguishable, and until 

 denied by Mr. Doubleday I believe this fact had not been disputed. Speaking of the 

 red grouse, the prevailing epidemic is killing them off by hundreds here. One day 

 last week I picked up five dead birds during a short walk on the moor: some of them 

 were in excellent condition, while others were reduced to mere skeletons. My im- 

 pression is that the disease is partly owing to the moors being overstocked.— George 

 Norman ; Ben Rhydding, April 12, 1867. 



