250 THE BIRD? OF DEVOX. 



during the breeding-season. The nestlings, or " squabs," 

 are quite blind, naked, and helpless, instead of being covered 

 with down, and able to run about and feed themselves as 

 soon as hatched, like chickens. Pigeons feed their young 

 with a kind of milky fluid, secreted by the crop, mixed 

 with macerated food, poured by regurgitation directly into 

 the mouths of their progeny. They have no giill-bladder, 

 hence, according: to some, their amiable disposition. They 

 have only twelve or fourteen tail-feathers, and no after- 

 shafts to the plumage, in which characters they agree 

 with the Perching-Birds, as well as in their generally 

 arboreal habits and in the structure of their feet. Their 

 manner of drinking is quite different from all other birds, 

 as they hold their bills in the water till they have 

 quenched their thirst ; and they neither sing nor utter 

 any call-notes, their only voice consisting of the well- 

 known " cooing " sound. 



The Devonshire list of birds includes all the four 

 English Wild Pigeons, or Doves, but only one of them, 

 the Common Ring-Dove, is at all times numerous, generally 

 distributed, and well known. Within the last quarter 

 of a century, the Stock-Dove, far from a common species 

 in the S.W. counties during the nesting-season, has 

 established itself at a few places on the coast, both in 

 South and >\orth Devon, having been previously unknown 

 in the latter part of the county. We had come to regard 

 the Rock-Dove as extinct as a resident bird in Devonshire, 

 but competent observers have recently detected a pair or 

 two still frequenting their old haunts in the romantic 

 neighbourhood of Lynton. The pretty Turtle Dove, a 

 summer visitor to England, is distributed in small numbers 

 in sheltered places throughout the West Country, but is 

 far from being as plentiful as it is in the Midland and 

 Eastern Counties. 



