384 COMMON PIGEON. Class II. 



serves, take their Latin name, Columba, from 

 their voice or cooing ; and had he known it, he 

 might have added the British, &c. for Colom- 

 men, Kylobman, Kulm and Kolm, signify the 

 same bird. They were, and still are, found in 

 this kingdom in a state of nature, especially on 

 the vast rocks which impend over the sea. The 

 French call them Rocherayes, and some old 

 sportsmen in the south of England, Rockiers. 

 They swarm in the Orknies and Hebrides. In 

 the first they collect by thousands towards win- 

 ter, and do great injury to the rick-yards. I 

 have seen in Hay the bottoms of the great 

 chasms, covered with their dung for many feet 

 in thickness, which is drawn up in buckets, and 

 used successfully as a manure. Notwithstand- 

 ing this species is so easily domesticated, yet it 

 is difficult to tempt them to continue regularly 

 in a dove-cot near to their natural haunts. I 

 am acquainted with one, not far from those vast 

 rocks, the Orms-head, where they will reside on 

 account of the supply of food provided for 

 them, till the breeding season, at which time, 

 the greater part of the flock quit the artificial 

 holes, and return to the rude habitations on the 

 neighbouring promontories. Virgil, as a fami- 

 liar occurrence, describes the Pigeon as haunting 

 the caverns of a rock in such beautiful numbers, 



