112 
NATURAL HISTORY 
inhabit their cote for any time ; but, as foon as they begin to 
breed, betake themfelves to the faftneffes of Ormfiead, and depofit 
their young in fafety amid ft the inacceffible caverns, and preci- 
pices of that ftupendous promontory. 
" Naturam expellas furca . . . tamen ufque recurret." 
T have confulted a fportfman, now in his feventy-elghth year, 
who tells me that fifty or fixty y-ears back, when the beechen woods 
were much more extenfive than at prefent, the number of wood- 
pigeons was aftoniOiing ; that he has often killed near twenty in a 
day ; and that with a long wild-fowl piece he has fliot feven 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 fmall blue doves, which he calls 
rockiers. The food of thefe numbcrlefs emigrants was beech-maft 
and fome acorns ; and particularly barley, which they colledred in 
the ftubbles. But of late years, fince the vaft increafe of turnips, 
that vegetable has furnifhed a great part of their fupport in hard 
weather ; and the holes they pick in thefe roots greatly damage 
the crop. From this food their flefh has contraded a rancidnefs 
which occafions them to be rejeded by nicer judges of eating, who 
thought them before a delicate dilh. They were fliot not only as 
they were feeding in the fields, and efpecially in fnowy weather, 
but alfo at the clofe of the evening, by men who lay in ambufh 
among the woods and groves to kill them as they came in to 
^ooft^ Thefe are the principal circumftances relating to this 
» Some old fportfmen fay that the main part of thefe flocks ufed to withdraw as ibon 
its the heavy Chrlftmas frofts were over, 
wonderful 
