NATUEAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
87 
bird, jay, and house-martin, all clean picked, and some half devoured. 
The old birds had been observed to make sad havoc for some days 
among the new-flown swallows and martins, which, being but lately out 
of their nests, had not acquired those powers and command of wing 
that enable them, when more mature, to set such enemies at defiance. 
LETTER XLIY, 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Nov. SOth, 1780. 
Dear Sir, — Every incident that occasions a renewal of our corre- 
spondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. 
As to the wild wood-pigeon, the (Enas, or Vinago, of Eay, I am much 
of your mind; and see no reason for making it the origin of the 
common house-dove : but suppose those that have advanced that opinion 
may have been misled by another appellation, often given to the Qj^no^s 
which is that of stock-dove. 
Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners from 
itself in summer, no 
species seems more 
unlikely to be domes- 
ticated, and to make 
an house-dove. We 
very rarely see the 
latter settle on trees 
at all, nor does it ever 
haunt the woods : but 
the former as long as 
it stays with us, from 
iNTovember perhaps to 
February, lives the 
same wild life with 
the ring-dove, Palum- 
bus torquatus ; fre- 
quents coppices and 
groves, supports itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the 
tallest beeches. 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 country. But why did 
not your correspondent determine the place of its nidification, whether 
on rocks, clifis, 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. 
* See Letter XXXIX., and note. 
