ago, indeed, I am informed by Mr. Alexander Henderson, an observant bird-student resident in 

 East Lothian, he had repeatedly seen considerable flocks of Wood-Pigeons alighting on the 

 coast near his house, evidently in a state of exhaustion. These birds, he remarked, were smaller 

 and darker in plumage than those hatched in the neighbouring woods ; and he was convinced at 

 the time of their appearance that they were migrants from other countries. Very soon after this 

 information was communicated to me, I witnessed a still more extraordinary instance of foreign 

 invasion, on the sea-shore about three miles east of Dunbar. I had gone out about daybreak, 

 and was astonished to see a prodigious cloud of Pigeons fully a mile seawards, steering for the 

 nearest land. The entire body of birds alighted on the sandy beach at Catcrag Bay, which they 

 completely covered between the rocks near the limestone quarry and the opposite point in the 

 direction of the town. I am satisfied there must have been in the flock twenty or thirty thousand 

 Pigeons at the lowest computation ; and, from the fact of their alighting immediately on reaching 

 land without any preliminary survey of the ground, I concluded they had come in from a long 

 journey. Their tameness on my approach confirmed this conjecture, as I was allowed to put 

 them up within twelve or fifteen yards. The cloud slowly ascended ; and a line was formed, six 

 or eight birds deep, which gradually drew off the main body, forming a singular spectacle when 

 viewed against the morning sky, and almost realizing the descriptions of Wilson and Audubon 

 when writing of the Passenger Pigeon of North America and its ' five-mile ' processions in the 

 air." In the same work (p. 217) Mr. Gray writes as follows : — " Throughout the western 

 counties of Scotland the Wood-Pigeon, though very numerous and apparently on the increase, 

 is by no means so abundant as in the eastern districts. It is plentiful in Islay, where it was 

 introduced by the late Mr. Campbell, proprietor of the island. It is found in Mull, Sky 

 Inverness, Ross, and Sutherlandshire ; but westward of the inner islands it ranks only as a 

 straggler. A few are occasionally seen in spring and autumn in Benbecula and South Uist, but 

 they do not remain. 



" During the autumn and winter months the Bing-Dove, as this beautiful bird is also called, 

 feeds chiefly upon the seeds of wild mustard, chickweed, roots of ranunculus or crowfoot, ivy- 

 berries, oak-' spangle,' berries of the hawthorn and holly, and various other fruits and seeds. I 

 remember many years ago shooting great numbers in a garden at Dunbar, where their plundering 

 visits to the gooseberry-bushes were a source of constant annoyance. Each Pigeon must have 

 consumed a large quantity daily, as I found the crops of those I killed quite distended with 

 gooseberries. Beech-nuts are also a favourite food, judging from the immense quantities 

 devoured. From newspaper paragraphs now before me, I learn that in the crop of one bird 

 shot in East Lothian 272 beech-nuts were found; and that in another, shot by Mr. Joseph 

 Sadler, at Alyth, in Forfarshire, there were found 1020 grains of corn ! Mr. James S. Dixon, 

 of Glasgow, who has for some years taken notes on the food of this species, informs me that he 

 has many times been interested in watching a flock of Wood-Pigeons traversing a grass-field, and 

 eagerly picking off the seeds of the common buttercup, which they appeared to swallow with 

 avidity." In the north of Scotland the Ring-Dove becomes scarcer, but it is by no means 

 uncommon in Sutherland. Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown says that it is " plentiful like other sylvan 

 species at Rosehall, between that and Bonar Bridge, and in the east generally. In 1834 

 Mr. Selby observed it as far north as Tongue, where it breeds in the plantations and birch- 



