THE DOVECOT PIGEON. 



249 



These pigeons never lay more than two eggs at 

 one sitting. Indeed, 1 should be most surprised 

 were it satisfactorily proved that any pigeon ever 

 sits on three eggs. 



Nothing can surpass the attachment of these 

 birds to the cot of their choice. Provided you do 

 not absolutely molest them by the repeated dis- 

 charge of fire-arms, they can scarcely be driven 

 from it. You may unroof their habitation ; and 

 though you leave it in that dismantled state for 

 weeks together, still the pigeons will not forsake it. 

 At their early hour of roosting, they will approach 

 within three or four yards of the workmen, and 

 then take shelter in the holes of the roofless walls, 

 where they remain for the night. 



Much might be written by the ornithologist on 

 the intimacy which would exist betwixt man and 

 the feathered tribes, if man would condescend to 

 cultivate it Were I " close pent up in the social 

 chimney corner," on some dismal winter's evening, 

 with an attentive " Eugenius " by my side, I would 

 show him the cause of shyness which exists betwixt 

 the birds and us; and, amongst other things, I 

 would prove to him that no bird ever anticipates 

 the return of man to the vicinity of its nest, by the 

 supposed act of removing its " young to new quar- 

 ters." The pretended discovery of this reasoning 

 quality in birds may be just the thing to raise 

 the writer in the estimation of the editor of the 

 American Quarterly ; but it won't go down here 

 m England. 



' Our ancestors generally built their dovecots m 



