AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 279 



US that the Wood-Pigeon, in the long days of August 

 at all events, has three regular feeding-times, viz. — an 

 hour after daylight, from noon till about 2 p.m., and 

 again in the late evening. Hereabouts they give a 

 decided preference to fields of peas and barley, and 

 by concealing one's self amongst these crops, or in 

 the line of flight from the woods thereunto, great 

 execution may sometimes be done, especially at the 

 beginning of harvest before the crops are carried : a 

 few of the wooden decoys above mentioned, judi- 

 ciously placed in conspicuous positions upon the 

 stooks and on the mown stubble, will generally draw 

 the Pigeons and afford very pretty shooting ; it is a 

 remarkable fact that many more old birds are thus 

 killed than young. In hot weather many Wood- 

 Pigeons may be shot at and about their drinking- 

 places ; but at the ponds in the pasture-lands we 

 find that the horses, sheep, and horned cattle will 

 invariably knock down the stales, and much time is 

 lost in driving off these thirsty and inquisitive 

 beasts. The Wood-Pigeon often has eggs in the 

 first week of April, and generally rears three, some- 

 times four, broods in the year. We have once or 

 twice put one of these birds off her eggs in March, 

 and often in October. The nest and eggs are 

 probably too well known to my readers to require 

 description. The nests are built, to use a somewhat 

 vague but expressive phrase, "almost anywhere," 

 high and low, well concealed, and conspicuous to 

 every passer, in thin-limbed beeches, dense spruce- 

 firs, ivy, hawthorns, pollard willows, brambles, in 

 fact no boughs or twigs that will support the simple 

 platform of sticks seem to come amiss to these birds, 

 and we have several times found their nests built 

 upon old ones of other species, such as Thrushes, 



