THE DOVECOT PIGEON. 
249 
These pigeons never lay more than two eggs at 
one sitting. Indeed, 1 should be most surprised 
were it satisfactorily proved that any pigeon ever 
sits on three eggs. 
Nothing can surpass the attachment of these 
birds to the cot of their choice. Provided you do 
not absolutely molest thera by the repeated dis- 
charge of fire-arms, they can scarcely be driven 
from it. You may unroof their habitation ; and 
though you leave it in that dismantled state for 
weeks together, still the pigeons will not forsake it 
At their early hour of roosting, they will approach 
within three or four yards of the workmen, and 
then take shelter in the holes of the roofless walls, 
where they remain for the night. 
Much might be written by the ornithologist on 
the intimacy which would exist betwixt man and 
the feathered tribes, if man would condescend to 
cultivate it Were I " close pent up in the social 
chimney corner," on some dismal winter's evening, 
with an attentive " Eugenius " by my side, I would 
show him the cause of shyness which exists betwixt 
the birds and us; and, amongst other things, I 
would prove to him that no bird ever anticipates 
the return of man to the vicinity of its nest, by the 
supposed act of removing its " young to new quar- 
ters." The pretended discovery of this reasoning 
quality in birds may be just the thing to raise 
the writer in the estimation of the editor of the 
American Quarterly ; but it won't go down here 
m England. 
Our ancestors generally built their dovecots in 
