THE ROCK-DOVE. 11 



Great bodies of starlings often regale near them in the same 

 field. They are almost as tame as flocks of domesticated pigeons 

 when these betake themselves to the stubbles, and are often 

 within shot from the public roads. It was in winter that I 

 remarked them thus, at which season they would prove beneficial 

 to the farmer, though in the spring they may do some little harm 

 unless means be taken to keep them from newly-sown fields. 

 The crops and stomachs of three birds shot in the middle of 

 April and sent me from that island were filled with grain. In 

 Orkney, where these birds abound, and the ring-dove has 

 very rarely been seen, they are considered destructive to corn- 

 fields."* The birds brought to table in Islay in winter were 

 delicate and very highly flavoured,* much more so than the 

 ring-dove, killed at the same time, and superior also to tame 

 pigeons. 



Of the great numbers of rock-doves which came under my notice during the month 

 of January 1849 in Islay, all appeared when on the ground and on wing, of the 

 true wild colour, but fully the half of those killed had the light bluish grey of the 

 wing anterior to the transverse black bars mottled over with black. These might be 

 looked upon as young birds were the species not stated to acquire the full colouring at 

 the first moult, excepting a little brown that remains on the edge of the wings. f It 

 often happens from the rock-dove being the parent of the common tame pigeon, that 

 when the dove-cot is not far distant from the nesting-places of the wild birds in the 

 rocks, the tame ones resort thither and pair with them. The white mottled progeny 

 conspicuously attract attention, and when seen frequenting wild localities often cause 

 surprise to persons unacquainted with the fact. At the Fall of Foyers, Inverness- 

 shire, as well as at various other places, I have remarked that only some of these birds 

 were purely bred ; others being mottled with white from the admixture alluded to. 



Mr. "William Andrews, in a paper descriptive of a portion of the west of Kerry 

 read before the Dublin Nat. Hist. Society in November 1841, remarked: — " Rock- 

 pigeons breed in great numbers in the cliffs of Sybil Head, and with them I observed 

 flocks of the mottled species. * * * These birds have not the distinctive bars on 

 the wings ; their wing-coverts and a portion of the back are strongly marked and 

 spotted with black ; the protuberances of their nostrils appear more prominent than 

 in Columba livia and the tail broader and more abruptly rounded. * * * It would 

 appear that this species [Col. macularia] is confined to the cliffs of Sybil Head, for 

 upon the most diligent inquiry of those who are in the habit of observing and shooting 



* Historia Naturalis Orcadensis, by Baikie and Heddle, Edin. 1848. 



f Macgillivray, vol. iii. p. 277. A full and excellent account of the species from 

 personal observation will be found in this work. 



