Birds. 665 



just at the close of the day, or later if there be a good moon, and shoot 

 them as they fly out. 



Where they are numerous they inflict considerable loss upon the 

 farmer, visiting his pea-fields and seed tares with great assiduity ; and 

 each bird will eat not less than two ounces of peas daily. It is wor- 

 thy of observation, that when invading a pea-field, they keep very 

 much together : there are, for the most part, no detached parties, but 

 the last comers join those already in occupation. Does this proceed 

 from their social disposition ; — their certainty of finding what they 

 want where they see their friends employed ; — or that sense of safety 

 increased by numbers which seems to actuate so many birds and ani- 

 mals ? Their flocking in autumn and winter, as does that of larks 

 and other gregarious birds, proceeds mainly, of course, from the first- 

 mentioned source ; though I think it is certain that other motives also 

 influence them. But I doubt if these minor assemblages, when they 

 have their young to attend to, can be similarly accounted for ; and 

 should be more inclined to assign the second cause as probably the 

 principal one ; and particularly when they often go to the same spot 

 in the pea-field, day after day, for two or three days together. 



" This bird does not always confine itself to woods, for I knew a 

 pair breed, for several years, at the edge of a corn-field, in a large so- 

 litary hawthorn, — overhanging the river Ayr, — although there was a 

 wood of considerable extent on the opposite bank. This, however, 

 must be considered rather an exception to the general rule ; for it is 

 most generally found in large woods. 1 ' — So says Professor Rennie. It 

 is rather mortifying to discover that nineteen out of every twenty ring- 

 doves with whom I have been on visiting terms in spring and summer 

 have been decided " exceptions to the general rule ; " very excentric 

 birds, in fact, and not, as I had flattered myself, douce, steady-going, 

 respectable creatures, whose acquaintance might be esteemed a credit. 

 Yet such is the fact, however humiliating it may be to tell it. I have 

 distinct recollections of some dozens of ringdoves' nests ; and could 

 go to the spots, in various parts of the country, wherein I found them; 

 and yet I should hardly go at all into a wood on such an errand. Pol- 

 lard trees in hedge-rows, ivied trees, — even by the road side, — thick 

 shrubs in gardens — isolated or standing amidst others, — fir-trees and 

 thorn-bushes, — the latter even on the outside of a wood, or standing 

 alone in a field or park, — these and such like places are selected for 

 the situation of the nest. It maybe, and most likely is the case, that 

 the discrepancy between the Professor's statement and my experience 

 may be accounted for on the ground of difference of locality. Until 



