154 TAMENESS OF WOODPIGEON. [PART II. 
disconsolate with its single egg, on a table in the 
hall. I did not see either of the birds in the 
drawing-room afterwards. They probably gave up 
settling there as a “bad job,” and went to look 
out some more favoured place, where housemaids, 
with their brooms, pails, e¢ hoc genus omne, 
were unlikely to trouble them. I wonder what 
lying-in-hospital poor Madame found for her re- 
maining eggs. 
The tameness of the Woodpigeon during the 
breeding season presents a remarkable contrast to 
his extreme wildness at other seasons of the year. 
In the winter, saving the Curlew, I scarcely know 
a shyer bird, or one who takes generally better 
care of himself. If you endeavour to approach 
one in a tree, he almost invariably flies off so as 
to keep it between yourself and him, and thus 
often saves himself from the chance of a shot. In 
the spring, however, you see the Woodpigeon qui- 
etly walking about your pleasure-grounds close to 
the house, or sitting unconcerned on a low tree, 
and cooing, within a few yards of you, crossing 
you as he leaves it, or coming straight over your 
head with a flight betokening nothing of alarm 
or haste, but probably executing, as he does it, 
one of those elegant movements peculiar to that 
