2960 Tak Zootocist—Marcu, 1872. 
been in the flock twenty or thirty thousand pigeons, at the lowest computa- 
tion; and, from the fact of their alighting immediately on reaching land, 
without any preliminary survey of the ground, I concluded they had come 
in from along journey. Their tameness on my approach confirmed this 
conjecture, as I was allowed to put them up within twelve or fifteen yards. 
The cloud slowly ascended, and a line was formed, six or eight birds deep, 
which gradually drew off the main body, forming a singular spectacle when 
viewed against the morning sky, and almost realizing the descriptions of 
Wilson and Audubon, when writing of the passenger pigeon of North 
America, and its ‘ five-mile’ processions in the air.” 
Such an arrival as is here described portended woe to the lowland 
farmers, whose crops of every kind would have to pay toll. 
« As an example of the bird’s extraordinary voracity, Lord Haddington 
has forwarded to me, in separate cases, the contents of the crops of four 
wood pigeons opened at different times: the first contains 144 field peas 
and seven large beans; the second 231 beech-nuts; the third 813 grains of 
barley ; and the fourth 874 grains of oats and 55 of barley. Such damage 
may be better estimated from the fact that the bird is known to feed three 
times daily, each meal probably involving the consumption of an equal 
quantity of grain by a single bird. In a grain-producing district, therefore, 
where from 15,000 to 29,000 pigeons have been destroyed within twelve 
months, without effecting any apparent decrease in their numbers, the loss 
to agriculturists must be enormous.” 
No doubt this increase of a mischievous bird is due to several 
causes, but the chief of these may be justly regarded to be the 
greater adaptation of the country to their habits afforded by the 
high farming of modern times, and the destruction of all kinds of 
hawks which would have kept the pigeons under. 
We pass on now to other birds, which are noticed in an 
interesting manner in Mr. Gray’s volume. He has but a low 
opinion of the Corvide. The greatest thief of the whole family 
would seem to be the hooded crow, which interbreeds very com- 
monly with the carrion crow, many cases having come under 
Mr. Gray’s notice. Here is one:— 
“Tn a glen near the banks of Loch Lomond a female hooded crow had 
her nest, and had commenced laying. Her first mate was a carrion crow, 
and after the keeper shot him the hen bird went away, and returned with a 
second bird, also black. He, too, was killed a day or two afterwards, but 
the dauntless widow got another black mate within a few hours, and thus 
