PIGEON-COTS 



AND 



PIGrEON-STEALERS. 



U NE GL0RIARI LIBEAT ALIENIS BONIS." 



It is not lawful jou should boast, 

 Of triumph at another's cost. 



Should my little collection of facts in natural 

 history, be pleasing to the general reader, I 

 would beg leave to draw his attention to this 

 paper in particular ; which although, properly 

 speaking, not wholly confined to my favourite 

 study, will still be useful to him ; and will let 

 him into deeds of evil import, which if not pre- 

 vented by the hand of power, will end, ere long, in 

 the extermination of a breed of birds, acknowledged 

 by remote generations, as well as by ourselves, 

 to be most excellent food for man, and productive 

 of singular fertility to the farmer's field. 



A Koman poet, two thousand years ago, left us a 



