160 On the Occurrence of some of the Rarer Species of Birds 



rushing sound over our head as of an engine blowing off steam. 

 On looking* up we found it proceeded from a large flock of some 

 seventy or eighty pigeons which were in the act of shooting down 

 perpendicularly from a high elevation in the air, with closed wings, 

 at a most unusual velocity, which made my friend exclaim, " They're 

 going at their best pace." At the time it gave me the idea that 

 they were avoiding the swoop of a falcon, or some bird of prey. 

 But this was evidently not the case, for on my way home I saw, and 

 heard, the same manoeuvre repeated by a smaller flock of some 

 twenty birds, which went through exactly the same evolution as 

 the others, descending in the shape of a wedge, the thin edge down- 

 wards, with no apparent cause whatever — and maintaining after- 

 wards the same rapid flight in a south-easterly direction, which I 

 had observed them taking before. There was certainly no hawk 

 near them, and I can only conjecture that they did it to avoid, per- 

 chance some adverse current of wind they were encountering in the 

 ligher regions of air where they were. 



It is not often that any variation in colour takes place in this 

 species, but I remember coming across a pair of local specimens 

 which were of a light cream colour ; the light bars on the wings 

 and the patches round the neck being indistinctly visible through 

 he light-coloured plumage with which they were surrounded. There 

 is, fortunately, but little chance of the Woodpigeon ever decreasing 

 amongst us to any great extent. It is one of our most attractive 

 sylvan birds ; and no one can listen to its plaintive notes, or watch 

 in the breeding season soaring upwards in the air, rising with 

 loud clapping of the wings to a considerable elevation, and then 

 descending gracefully with out-stretched pinions to its former level, 

 without eye and ear being captivated by its motions, or yielding 

 one's self up to those thoughts of peace and contentment, to which 

 the actions of the bird itself seem so plainly to testify. 



Columba JEnas. The next species that comes before our notice is 

 the C( Stock Dove/' which in this immediate neighbourhood is almost 

 as numerous as the preceding one, and is very similar to it in many 

 of its habits, though it can be at once distinguished from it by its 

 shorter tail, more compact shape, and the absence of the white ring 



