114 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
ance, small head, wings not so blunt, and longer tail. This spe- 
cimen contained in its craw some limbs of frogs and many gray- 
snails without shells. The irides of the eyes of this bird were of 
a beautiful bright yellow colour.* 
About the tenth of July in the same summer a pair of sparrow- 
hawks bred in an old crow's nest on a low beech in the same 
hanger : and as their brood, which was numerous, began to grow 
up, became so daring and ravenous, that they were a terror to all 
the dames in the village that had chickens or ducklings under 
their care. A boy climbed the tree, and found the young so 
fledged that they all escaped from him ; but discovered that a 
good house had been kept : the larder was well stored with pro- 
visions ; for he brought down a young blackbird, 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 XLIV. To T. PENNANT, Esq. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780. 
Every incident that occasions a renewal of oijr correspondence 
will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. 
As to the wild wood-pigeon, the (Bnas, or vinago, of Ray, 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 cenaSy 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 do- 
mesticated, and to make a 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 November perhaps 
to February, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove, palumhus 
torquatus j frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly 
* This elegant species, intermediate in character between the kites and buzzards, and posses- 
sing otherwise some peculiarities, is now, together with a few others inhabiting the eastern couti- 
rjent, separated from the genus butco} and ranged under the denomination pemis' It is of ><Jiy rare 
occurrence in this country. — ^Ed. 
