28 Wild Birds, Useful and Injurious. 
hairy caterpillars — even the woolly bear — and it frequently 
visits gooseberry bushes to feed on the destructive grubs of 
the saw-fly. 
The Ringdove, Woodpigeon, Quest, or Cushat, is both very 
abundant and very desti-uctive. The home-bred birds are 
sufficiently numerous, but their numbers are augmented in 
autumn by vast flights from the Continent. They do great 
damage to corn, beans, peas, and vetch-seed, and in spring 
destroy a quantity of clover by pecking out the heart of the 
plant. They feed also on the leaves and roots of turnips, the 
leaves of ribgrass, buttercup, lesser celandine, grass, and many 
other plants, and on acorns, beechmast, hazel-nuts, holly 
berries, bilberries, and the seeds of charlock, dock, and other 
weeds. Even the ringdove, therefore, is not always doing 
harm. I was once walking through a clover field in June 
with a farmer, who said, “ Look at those woodpigeons eating 
my clover ” ; on my suggestion he shot four of them, and 
their ci-ops were ci’ammed with the seeds of chickweed, and 
contained only a leaf or two of clover. A few other substances 
eaten by pigeons are mentioned in the table at the foot -of this 
page.i 
The Stockdove, often incorrectly called the Rockdove or Blue 
Rock, lacks the white patch on the neck which characterises 
the adult ringdove, and it is also a smaller bird, the lengths 
being thirteen and a half and seventeen inches respectively. 
* The paper in the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural 
Society for 1906, already alluded to, contains the following interesting table : — 
Pigeon Foods arranged in order of Importance (24.5 Ringdoves examined). 
From Crops 
Number 
of times 
taken 
Barley grains . 
81 
Clover leaves . 
41 
Turnip and 
swede leaves 
38 
Oat grains 
29 
Potato tubers . 
23 
Bean seeds 
14 
Wheat grain . 
12 
Turnip and 
swede roots . 
6 
Grass seeds 
4 
Tares 
2 
Rye-grass seed 
1 
Rye grain 
1 
Maize (artificial 
food) . 
1 
Pea seed . 
1 
Total 
254 
Number 
of times 
From Weeds taken 
Charlock and runch 
leaves. . . 22 
Spurrey fruits . 1 1 
Charlock and runch 
flowers . . 9 
Cruciferous seeds . 7 
Buttercup flowers . 6 
Dock fruits . . 6 
Speedwell fruits . 4 
Chickweed fruits . 3 
Pilewort roots . 2 
Buttercup leaves . 1 
Annual meadow- 
grass flowers . 1 
Goosegrass seed . 1 
Total . .73 
Number 
of times 
I From Trees taken 
I Elm fruit . 18 
Beech nuts . 12 
1 Beech flowers . 11 
Elm flowers . 2 
I Wild cherries . 2 
Oak leaves . 1 
Haws . . 1 
Total . 47 
