WOOD-PIGEONS AND WILD-FOWL _ 155 
crop while there is wheat to be had. On the other 
hand, the turtle-doves, close relations of pigeons, 
may be seen feeding soon after they arrive on 
charlock seeds, where a rick has been threshed, in 
preference to a wealth of wasted corn. 
I have had good pigeon-shooting in favoured 
fields of wheat after it has been cut and shocked, 
also near patches of vetches and peas; but at 
harvest-time there is such a wealth of food almost 
everywhere that it is seldom easy to discover 
a good place to stand. I found one rather too 
exciting exception. I was waiting at the corner 
of a wood next to a field of ‘shocked’ wheat to 
which pigeons were doing no good. Owing to 
frequent rain, there had been an unusual delay 
in getting in the harvest, and this wheat had 
become soft and sweet, as corn about to grow out 
does—this doubtless was why the pigeons had a 
special liking for it, There was a strong north- 
west wind blowing from the wood, and I had 
noticed that the pigeons I disturbed from the 
wheat-shocks tacked their way back to the wood, 
so that they all entered it within fifty yards or 
so of the corner. Here I soon made a convenient 
screen by draping the angle of a wire-netting rabbit 
fence with some long ash-shoots and bracken. 1 
got an occasional shot, but most of. the pigeons 
preferred to sit in the wood behind me, evidently 
having fed their fill in view of a coming thunder- 
