AXD NEIGHBOURHOOD. 277 



many hundreds, occasionally by thousands, of these 

 birds from the north and east on their southward 

 migration, about the second or third week of October, 

 The stay of these travellers seems to depend upon 

 the supply of the above-mentioned food, and of course 

 on the weather ; a few days of severe frost and snow 

 drive them oiF to the southward, and although during 

 a continuance of such weather we may be visited by an 

 occasional passing flight of these Pigeons, they seldom 

 linger for more than a few days. Our native Wood- 

 Pigeons seldom entirely leave their birthplace ; though 

 the southward migration carries off" more or less of 

 them, some always remain, and feed, apparently princi- 

 pally, at our bean-stacks and on the scanty turnip-tops 

 left by the penned sheep. In open weather few vege- 

 table productions come amiss to the Wood-Pigeon, and 

 we fear that this bird cannot be ranked otherwise than 

 as detrimental to the agriculturist. The capacity of 

 the Wood-Pigeon's crop is marvellous ; the thin and 

 delicate membrane of which it is formed seems to 

 stretch like a sheet of india-rubber. The Rev. John 

 Holdich, of Bulwick, has supplied me with a note 

 from his Journal, dated December 2, 1837, to the 

 foUo's^ing effect: — "Payne, the keeper at Dingley, 

 lately killed a Wood-Pigeon in Brampton Wood, 

 which had in its crop six dozen (72) acorns ; he 

 strung them, and made a string of about 4 feet 

 long." We have ourselves taken 87 beans and a few 

 fragments of turnip-tops from the crop of one of 

 these Pigeons which we killed as it came to roost in 

 one of our plantations some years ago, and have 

 found at various seasons, besides the food above 

 mentioned, wheat, barley, oats, peas, beech-mast, 

 ivy-berries, haws, yew-berries, the pulp of turnips, 



