4 COLDMBID^E. 



and winter they may be daily seen in the afternoon, in great num- 

 bers, not less than five hundred occasionally appearing in one 

 flock. Mr. Selby remarks, that the ring-dove prefers to roost in 

 fir and ash trees ; but in this park the beech apparently is pre- 

 ferred to all others. Not only is a wood consisting of these trees 

 their chief resort, but in mixed plantations, the beech tops may 

 be seen dotted with ring-doves, when none appear on other equally 

 lofty deciduous trees, pines, or firs — in this respect, they resemble 

 the stock-dove (C. (Enas). It is interesting to see (as I have 

 done, though rarely,) a number of these birds, before retiring 

 to roost, descend from the highest trees to drink at the river 

 Lagan, which bounds the demesne. On November 30, 1838, 

 which was a very dark day, several hundreds were settled on the 

 trees apparently for the night, so early as half-past two o'clock 

 in the afternoon. The large flocks, rising en masse from their 

 roosting-places with great noise, remind us — though their 

 numbers are but as units to thousands — of the flights of the 

 passenger pigeon in North America, of which we are so fully in- 

 formed in the graphic narrations of Wilson and Audubon. 

 Another circumstance has brought those descriptions to mind. 

 On one occasion, the frequent discharge of fire-arms in the park 

 alarmed these wary birds, and flying thence they alighted, to the 

 number of about two hundred, on a single oak-tree in the midst 

 of a pasture field, where they could not be approached without 

 their perceiving the enemy from a distance. Different however 

 from the American trees when laden with passenger pigeons, not 

 a twig of the sturdy Irish oak broke beneath the weight of the 

 ring-doves. 



The earliest autumnal date in my journal, with reference to 

 very large flocks roosting in Belvoir Park, is September 16, 1840. 

 In 1839, they were noted as seen in immense flocks so late as the 

 25th of March, although the spring of that year was not 

 later than ordinary. 



They breed here fully as early as in the north of England, oc- 

 casionally even earlier than the latter end of February — the time 

 mentioned by Mr. Selby. Lofty trees are generally selected for 



