CHAPTEE XV. 



The Ring-Dove— A Pet Ring-Dove— Its Death— Shcnstone— The Belme Vulgaris or Gar- 

 Fish — A Rat and a Kilmarnock Night-Cap — Extraordinary Roebuck's Head at Ardgour. 



The -weatter [October 1870] witli us here on tlie West Coast 

 continues wonderfully mild and open for the latter end of October. 

 Were it not, indeed, for an occasional sprinkling of snow along the 

 mountain summits of an early morning, and finding as you wander 

 about the pathways everywhere bestrewn with fallen leaves, we 

 might find some difficulty in persuading ourselves, in weather so 

 bright and summer-like, that the season was at all so far advanced 

 as it really is, that 1870, with its immediate predecessor — the anni 

 mirabiles of the century — had already so nearly run its allotted 

 course. A striking proof of the exceptional mildness of the weather 

 since mid- August is the fact that a young wood-pigeon or ring-dove 

 {Columba palumhus), not yet nearly full fledged, was brought to us 

 a few days ago from a nest in the woods of Goirrechadrachan. We 

 have kept it with the view of rearing it as a pet, though the chances 

 are all against us, the produce of such late incubations having 

 always less robustness and vitality about them than birds hatched 

 in spring or early summer. There is a little difficulty, as a rule, in 

 rearing the ring-dove, and getting it to become even troublesomely 

 tame, until it purrs and kur-doo's about your feet, and rubs himself 

 against you with aU the familiarity and empressement of a kitten 

 begging for its morning allowance of milk. It is, however, exceed- 

 ingly quarrelsome and pugnacious among other pets, and so jealous 

 of any attention bestowed on any one but itself, that it wUl pout 

 and sulk for half a day if it considers itself injured in this respect; 

 and yet so little grateful is it for any amount of kiudness you may 



