OF SELBORNE. 
133 
pigeon, 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 gene- 
rally 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 Roger 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 inaccessible caverns and precipices of that 
stupendous promontory. 
"Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque 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 
wildfowl 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.^ The food of these numberless emigrants was 
beech mast and some acorns, and particularly barley, which 
they collected in the stubbles. But of late years, since the 
^ This is now the generally received opinion, ahhough formerly 
naturalists, misled by the signification of the word " stock," regarded 
the stock-dove as the progenitor of all the domestic breeds. — Ed. 
^ A good argument, as illustrated by the fact that the two conspicuous 
black bars on the wing of the rock-dove may be observed in many 
individuals of the numerous domestic varieties. The fact also of the 
dove-cot pigeon never perching upon trees affords another proof of its 
relationship with the rock -dove, and not with the stock-dove. — Ed. 
^ Although called "rockiers," these "small blue doves" mast have 
been stock-doves. — Ed. 
