514 
Hock which wore seen on a hedge in the middle of the village. 
The last great arrival was in 1867 ; so it is about time wo had 
another “rush” of them, sixteen years having passed since this 
“harbinger of famine” appeared among us, which is about the same 
period which had previously elapsed after the great invasion of 1850. 
It is quite certain that their appearance has nothing to do with 
severity of weather in this country, an extra prolific breeding 
season in their own being more iwobably the cause, as occasionally 
happens with the Sand Grouse, and Kose Pastor, and other 
species. 
About the middle of January we had a decided arrival of Wood 
Pigeons, and the farmers began to complain that they were 
punishing the young blades of the future hay crop, Avhich in the 
open weather were appearing above the ground. Some of them had 
very dark backs, like Wood Pigeons I have shot in Durham, and 
they may have come from that county, where a general smokiness 
l^ervades the plumage of all birds. The keeper caught forty-eight 
alive in a contrivance sometimes used here — a shed with a net to let 
down in front of it. One was a whity slate-colour, while tlirce 
were young birds, apparently very late hatched, and showing only 
a trace of the neck ring. The Wood Pigeon seems sometimes very 
late in hatching. I once found a nest with two eggs, and the old 
bird on them, on the 7th of September. I have some notes from 
Mr. Prank Horgate on the subject ; — In 1871, on the 8th of Septem- 
ber, he took a fresh egg from which the old bird had been shot on 
the 2nd; and the same day saw another old bird sitting, whose young 
ones did not fly until about the 13th of October; while in 1878 
he shot four very young ones on the 1st of Pebruary. 
Tire keeper took several more subsequently, which showed 
immaturity in some part of their plumage. Thus, of seventeen 
netted on the 18th of Pebruary, no less than eight were decidedly 
marked with brown on the back and wing-coverts. The slate- 
coloured bird is still alive : it has for its companion a Stock Dove, 
which is as tame as the other bird is shy. This also was caught in 
the net, and is the first of the kind I have seen at iN’orthrepps for a 
long time, though they used to be fairly common. It seems that as 
they, like the Eed-legged Partridge, extend the area of their distribu- 
tion they become thinner at the centre ; though it may bo in this 
parish merely the effect of “ thinning ” the woods and the absence 
