8 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



turbance. What is also remarkable is its sociability, even 

 gregariousness, during this period, numbers of nests often being 

 placed quite close together. This may in some measure be because 

 suitable sites are rare elsewhere. Like its congeners it begins to 

 breed early, and is remarkably prolific, continuing to rear brood 

 after brood from March or April onwards to September and 

 October. I have shot young Stock Doves not many days out of 

 the nest, with filaments of down clinging to the head, in 

 November. The nest is placed in a variety of situations, yet 

 always well concealed. A covered site of some kind is always 

 preferred. Holes in trees, the deserted nests of Magpies and 

 Crows, the old dreys of squirrels, or amongst ivy on trees and 

 cliffs, or even in holes of the latter, or in church steeples, are 

 all favourite places ; whilst in more exposed districts it habitually 

 frequents rabbit - burrows for the purpose. I have known it 

 nest several yards up a fissure in the ironstone cliffs of a 

 quarry. The nest is slight, and in many instances is dispensed 

 with altogether. A few twigs or roots carelessly interlaced, or a 

 handful of straws, is the sole provision ever made. The two 

 eggs (three have been said to have been found, but never in my 

 own experience) are creamy white in colour, oval in form, and 

 measure on an average i'4 inch in length by i'2 inch in breadth. 

 Incubation lasts from seventeen to eighteen days, and both birds 

 assist in the task ; as they also do in rearing the young. These 

 are brought to maturity in a similar manner to those of the pre- 

 ceding species, and are deserted as soon as they can leave the nest. 

 Diagnostic Ch3XS,Giers.—Colu?nba, with a rudimentary 

 wing bar, no white patches on the sides of the ne'-.k, the rump 

 uniform in colour with the back, and the axillaries and under 

 wing coverts grey. Length, 13 inches. 



