121 



an Agricultural friend) of an immense flock of Wood Pigeons, busily engaged 

 ( apparently on a field of young clover, which had the last season been under barley. 

 Mr. Agriculturist asks, "You constantly say that every bird does more good than 

 harm ; what good are those birds doing to my young clover V On this, in furtherance 

 of his favourite axiom, " that every wild animal is of service to us," Mr. St. John de- 

 termined to shoot spme to see what they were actually feeding on. He shot eight, 

 and on examination found that every bird's crop was as full as it could hold of two of the 

 worst weeds in the country, the wild mustard, and the ragweed, which they had found 

 remaining on the sm-face of the ground ; the plants ripening and dropping their seeds 

 before the corn is cut. 



298. Now no amount of htiman labour and search could have collected on the same 

 ground, at that time of the year, as much of these seeds as was consumed by each of 

 these five or six hundred Wood Pigeons daily, for two or three weeks together. You 

 very justly ask the question, "Where did the Pigeon that was shot in the neighbour- 

 hood of Canterbury get the corn, as Pigeons do not scratch f The corn she eat would 

 have been wasted, and it seems hard not to allow that which would have been food for 

 other, " and perhaps worse" animals, to be eaten by a bird which is so useful, at other 

 times, as the Wood Pigeon. I hope your correspondent will not become an advocate 

 for the annihilation of these birds ; but rather, when he understands them more, do all 

 be can to preserve them in his neighboui-hood. 



THE DOVE-HOUSE PIGEON. 



299. This Pigeon is also known by the name of the common Dove-Cot Pigeon, and is 

 the commonest and most extensively diffused of all the tribe ; they are to be met with in 

 immense flocks peopling most of our Dove-cots, vast numbers are also to be found in 

 every country of Europe ; I have read they are plentiful in India, and have been in- 

 formed they are also to be seen on the rocks about Sydney, Australia ; most probably 

 the descendants of escaped birds taken there by emigrants. 



300. In many parts of England large numbers of these Pigeons may be found in a 

 wild state inhabiting rocks, ruins, or located in steeples or towers of our churches and 

 other buildings ; which flocks are continually replenished by numbers of our tame 

 Pigeons that loose their homes ; and this will also account for the variations in colour 

 that so frequently occur, even in what might otherwise be considered Wild Pigeons ; 

 indeed it would be very difiicult to say if these Pigeons are indigenous wild birds, or 

 only escaped or ferol. 



■ 301. Their colour is what is termed chequered or dappled, that is, they are of a slaty 

 black colour, chequered or dappled with blue on the wing coverts, and frequently there 

 is a brownish mark on the secondary wing feathers ; the rump is whitish, the tail is 

 rather short, tipped with black, the external feathers having a white margin, and the 

 under parts of the body lighter, the neck feathers glossed with purple and green ; the 

 beak is long, slender, and dark horn colour, the eye gravelly red ; the feet red ; but in 

 the young blackish. 



302. They are rather stouter and plumper made than the Wild Blue Rock Pigeon, 

 and much more familiar ; they are excellent breeders, raising many pairs of young in a 

 season, and though wild and fond of liberty, may be rendered very tame and docile. 



303. They are capable of finding their own living in the fields, where they do un- 

 told good by devouring the seeds of many weeds that they find on the ground, they also 

 eat many sorts of vegetables and green food that they find abroad ; but the good they 

 may contribute is little known, and they are looked on by many farmers as depredators. 

 Doubtless they may occasionally do some harm ; it must, however, be remembered that 

 the Pigeon's bill is not made for digging, nor his feet for scratching. Thus he can, 

 at most, only pick up the grain and seeds that are improperly covered, or lie scattered 

 on the surface, and which could not be gathered up. Some persons suppose that they 

 feed entirely on corn, and think, if a Pigeon one day eats a certain quantity of grain, 

 that he is to do so every day, and thus they reckon up a large supposed consumption ; 

 but seed-time and harvest do not last all the year, and even supposing they do some 

 trifling amount of damage, — that is to say, suppose they eat some corn that might have 

 fed the rooks, pheasants, or other birds (for very little of this corn would grow), is not 

 the damage compensated by the good they perform in eating tlie seeds of weeds, and, 



