96 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XLIV 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780. 



Dear Sir, 



Every incident that occasions a renewal of our corre- 

 spondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. 



As to the wild wood-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 February, lives 

 the same wild life with the ring-dove, palumhus 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, like 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 county. But why did not your correspondent de- 

 termine the place of its nidification, 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- 



