10 
COLUMBID^. 
Or examining the crops of some of these birds shot in the 
month of June 1832, at the wild peninsula of the Horn (co. 
Donegal), where the species is very common, we found them 
filled with the seeds of rushes. When visiting the island of 
Achil, on the 29th of June 1834 (in company with Mr. E. Ball), 
we approached several rock-doves feeding on the low sandy tract 
near Keil, within about twenty-five paces. Having remarked 
to Lieut. Eeynolds, E.N. (then stationed there, on the Coast Guard 
service), how near they permitted the approach of our party, 
he stated, that on the preceding day he killed twenty-one of them 
about the same place, and that he had procured so many as fifty 
in a forenoon there, and fifty-two on another day, although more 
than two were never obtained at a shot. They are seldom 
molested in this wild district, and consequently exhibit little fear 
of man. In the level tract alluded to, there is no ambush to 
conceal the sportsman, who must necessarily walk up in sight of 
the birds until within shooting distance. It is only at a par- 
ticular season that they are seen here, when attracted by a 
“ small pea^^ which is abundant, and always found in the crops of 
those killed. On requesting to be shown the plant, we found it 
to be the common bird^s-foot trefoil {Lotus corniculatus) . When 
M^alking on the summit of the fine marine cliffs about Portpatrick, 
in Wigtonshire, in August 1838, with Captain Payrer, E.N., he 
remarked to me on some rock-doves being sprung, that he had 
shot many there as they came to feed on the wild liquorice,'’^ a 
favourite kind of food ; — this also I ascertained to be the Lotus 
corniculatus. At the marine cliffs near BaUantrae, in the adjoin- 
ing county of Ayr, I have remarked these birds to be common, 
and have seen flocks of them alight in the fields of green or 
unripe corn, adjacent to the coast. It was stated that on two 
days in the autumn of 1843, a gentleman shot, about the marine 
caves here, sixteen or seventeen brace each day. 
The rock-dove breeds in great numbers in numerous marine 
caves of the headland of Oe in Islay ; many miles from which they 
may be seen daily feeding throughout the winter in large flocks — 
seventy or eighty together — particularly in the stubbie fields. 
