OF SELBOENE 91 



As to the wild mood-pigeon, the oenas, or vinago, of Ray,^ I am 

 much of your mind ; and see no reason for making it the origin 

 of the common house-dove : but suppose those that have advanced 

 that opinion may have been misled by another appellation, often 

 given to the oenas, which is that of stock-dove. 



Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners 

 from itself in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be 

 domesticated, and to make an house-dove. We very rarely see 

 the latter settle on trees at all, nor does it ever haunt the woods ; 

 but the former, as long as it stays with us, from November perhaps 

 to Februanj, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove, palumbus 

 torquatus ; frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly 

 by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it 

 be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would 

 be settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests 

 on trees, Uke the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do. 



You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex ; and 

 are informed that they sometimes breed in that country. But 

 why did not your correspondent determine the place of it's nidi- 

 fication, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an 

 adroit ornithologist I should doubt the fact, because people with 

 us perpetually confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 



For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that 

 house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many 

 reasons.^ In the first place the wild stock-dove is manifestly 

 larger than the common house-dove, against the usual rule o£ 

 domestication, which generally enlarges the breed. Again, those 

 two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each wing of the 

 stock-dove, which are so characteristic of the species, would not, 

 one should think, be totally lost by it's being reclaimed ; but 

 would often break out among its descendants. But what is 

 worth an hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir 

 Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvonshire ; which, though 



1 [Columia tenas, L. White evidently regarded this species as the most abun- 

 dant which frequented Selborne, but only as a winter " internal " migrant. Borrer 

 (Birds of Sussex, p. 178) says that it assembles in large flocks in the winter. It breeds 

 in great numbers in trees, cliffs, and even in rabbit-burrows (as, e.g., at Lulworth) 

 along the south coast, and packs in autumn, with the ring-dove, to feed in woods 

 and fields. See Letter XXXIX. to Pennant.] 



'' [In this passage White foreshadowed both the argument and the conclusion 

 of Darwin [see Animals and Plants under DoTnesticatioiiy vol. i., chap. vi.). There 

 is now no doubt that the domestic pigeon is descended from the small rock-dove 

 \Columba livia, L. ), or that the name stock-dove is derived from stock = tree, and not 

 stock = race. White's observation and perspicuity are nowhere better illustrated than 

 in this letter.] 



