254 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 
Could it be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt 
would be settled with me at once, provided they construct their 
nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do. 
You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex, 
and are informed that they sometimes breed in that county. But 
why did not your correspondent determine the place of its nidi- 
fication, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an 
adroit ornithologist I should doubt the fact, because people with 
us perpetually confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 
For my own part I readily concur with you in supposing that 
house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, Columha 
livia, for many reasons. In the first place the wild stock-dove 
is manifestly larger than the common house-dove, against the 
usual rule of domestication, which generally enlarges the breed. 
Again, those two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each 
wing of the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of the species, 
would not, one should think, be totally lost by its being reclaimed ; 
but would often break out among its descendants. But what is 
worth a hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir 
Eoger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvonshire ; which, though 
tempted by plenty of food and gentle treatment, can never be 
prevailed on to inhabit their cote for any time ; but as soon as 
they begin to breed, betake themselves to the fastnesses of 
Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety amidst the inac- 
cessible caverns and precipices of that stupendous promontory. 
" You may drive nature out with a pitch-fork, but she will always 
return :" 
" Naturatii cxpellas fur»'a . , . taiii'iii iis jue recurret."' 
I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, 
who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen 
woods were much more extensive than at present, the number 
of wood-pigeons was astonishing ; that he has often killed near 
twenty in a day; and that with a long wild-fowl piece he has 
shot seven or eight at a time on the wing as they came wheeling 
over his head ; he moreover adds, which I was not aware of, 
that often there were among them little parties of small blue 
doves, which he calls rockiers. Tlie food of these numberless 
