662 Birds. 



loved master ; and stayed no longer than to find it out. He was seen 

 about the garden for long afterwards, but came no more near any of 

 my relatives.* 



Some of his habits were sufficiently amusing. For instance, if a 

 dead bird were shown to him, his ire was instantly roused, and he at- 

 tacked it with the greatest fierceness. A rough harsh note was first 

 emitted, and then followed a shower of pecks and blows of the wing 

 upon the bird, the feathers of which were dispersed in all directions. 

 So determined was the onset, that the bird was half plucked in a very 

 short time. If, while sleeping, — previous, that is, to his being left 

 out all night, — I wakened him unceremoniously, his anger was ex- 

 pressed much in the same way ; the rough coo, and blow with his 

 wing, were instantly given. When he spent the night in the house, 

 the top of the kitchen door, or else one of my old caps (which lay up- 

 on a table or the mangle) was his resting-place. To the latter he was 

 very partial. 



* Since writing the above I have met with the following account in Jesse's ' Scenes and 

 Tales of Country Life.' "Every sportsman knows that the common wood-pigeon (the 

 ringdove) is one of the shyest birds we have, and so wild that it is very difficult indeed 

 to get within shot of one. This wild bird, however, has been known to lay aside its 

 usual habits. In the spring of 1839, some village boys brought two young wood-pi- 

 geons, taken from the nest, to the parsonage house of a clergyman in Gloucestershire, 

 from whom I received the following anecdote : — ' They were bought from the boys 

 merely to save their lives, and sent to an old woman near the parsonage to be bred up. 

 She took great care of them, feeding them with peas, of which they are very fond. One 

 of them died, but the other grew up, and was a fine bird. Its wings had not been cut, 

 and as soon as it could fly, it was set at liberty. Such, however, was the effect of the 

 kindness it had received, that it would never quite leave the place. It would fly to 

 great distances, and even associate with others of its own kind ; but it never failed to 

 come to the house twice a day to be fed. The peas were placed for it in the kitchen- 

 window. If the window was shut, it would tap with its beak till it was opened, then 

 come in, eat its meal, and then fly off again. If by any accident it could not then 

 gain admittance, it would wait somewhere near till the cook came out, when it would 

 pitch on her shoulder, and go with her into the kitchen. What made this more extra- 

 ordinary was, that the coo^k had not bred the bird up, and the old woman's cottage was 

 at a little distance ; but as she had no peas left, it came to the parsonage to be fed. 

 This went on for some time ; but the poor bird having lost its fear of man, was there- 

 fore exposed to constant danger from those who did not know it. It experienced the 

 fate of most pets. A stranger saw it quietly sitting on a tree, and shot it, to the great 

 regret of all its former friends.'" I was much pleased on reading this interesting ac- 

 count, and could not resist the temptation of appending it to my own. I could have 

 wished to know whether it met with its untimely fate previous to the commencement 

 of the breeding season : but I conclude it did. My pigeon seems rather to have been 

 influenced by attachment to an individual, than by want of food or general fearlessness 

 of man. 



