THE ROCK-DOVE. 
11 
Great bodies of starlings often regale near them in the same 
field. They are almost as tame as fiocks of domesticated pigeons 
when these betake themselves to the stubbles,, and are often 
within shot from the public roads. It was in winter that I 
remarked them thus^ at which season they would prove beneficial 
to the farmer, though in the spring they may do some little harm 
unless means be taken to keep them from newly^sown fields. 
The crops and stomachs of three birds shot in the middle of 
April and sent me from that island were filled with grain. In 
Orkney, where these birds abound, and the ring-dove has 
very rarely been seen, they are considered destructive to corn- 
fields.^ The birds brought to table in Islay in winter were 
delicate and very highly flavoured, much more so than the 
ring-dove, killed at the same time, and superior also to tame 
pigeons. 
Of the great numbers of rock-doves which came under my notice during the month 
of January 1849 in Islay, all appeared when on the ground and on wing, of the 
true wild colour, hut fuUy the half of those killed had the light bluish grey of the 
wing anterior to the transverse black bars mottled over with black. These might be 
looked upon as young birds were the species not stated to acquire the full colouring at 
the first moult, excepting a little brown that remains on the edge of the wings.f It 
often happens from the rock-dove being the parent of the common tame pigeon, that 
when the dove-cot is not far distant from the nesting-places of the wild birds in the 
rocks, the tame ones resort thither and pair with them. The white mottled progeny 
conspicuously attract attention, and when seen frequenting wild localities often cause 
surprise to persons unacquainted with the fact. At the Fall of Foyers, Inverness- 
shire, as well as at various other places, I have remarked that only some of these birds 
were purely bred ; others being mottled with white from the admixture alluded to. 
Mr. William Andrews, in a paper descriptive of a portion of the west of Kerry 
read before the Dublin Nat. Hist. Society in November 1841, remarked; — “ Rock- 
pigeons breed in great numbers in the cliffs of Sybil Head, and with them I observed 
flocks of the mottled species. * h= * 'phese birds have not the distinctive bars on 
the wings ; their wing-coverts and a portion of the back are strongly marked and 
spotted with black j the protuberances of their nostrils appear more prominent than 
in Columha livia and the tail broader and more abruptly rounded, * * * It would 
appear that this species \_Col. macularia'] is confined to the c liff s of Sybil Head, for 
upon the most diligent inquiry of those who are in the habit of observing and shooting 
* Historia Naturalis Orcadensis, by Baikie and Heddle, Edin. 1848. 
t Macgillivray, vol. iii. p. 277. A full and excellent account of the species from 
personal observation will be found in this w'ork. 
