4 
COLUMBID^. 
and winter they may be daily seen in the afternoon, in great num- 
bers, not less than five hundred occasionally appearing in one 
flock. Mr. Selby remarks, that the ring-dove prefers to roost in 
fir and ash trees ; but in this park the beech apparently is pre- 
ferred to all others. Not only is a wood consisting of these trees 
their chief resort, but in mixed plantations, the beech tops may 
be seen dotted with ring- doves, when none appear on other equally 
lofty deciduous trees, pines, or firs- — in this respect, they resemble 
the stock-dove [C. (Enas). It is interesting to see (as I have 
done, though rarely,) a number of these birds, before retiring 
to roost, descend from the highest trees to drink at the river 
Lagan, which bounds the demesne. On November 30, 1838, 
which was a very dark day, several hundreds were settled on the 
trees apparently for the night, so early as half-past two o^ clock 
in the afternoon. The large flocks, rising en masse from their 
roosting-places wdth great noise, remind us — though their 
numbers are but as units to thousands — of the flights of the 
passenger pigeon in North America, of which we are so fully in- 
formed in the graphic narrations of Wilson and Audubon. 
Another circumstance has brought those descriptions to mind. 
On one occasion, the frequent discharge of fire-arms in the park 
alarmed these wary birds, and fl}dng thence they alighted, to the 
number of about two hundred, on a single oak-tree in the midst 
of a pasture field, where they could not be approached without 
their perceiving the enemy from a distance. Different however 
from the American trees when laden with passenger pigeons, not 
a twig of the sturdy Irish oak broke beneath the weight of the 
ring-doves. 
The earliest autumnal date in my journal, with reference to 
very large flocks roosting in Belvoir Park, is September 16, 1840. 
In 1839, they were noted as seen in immense flocks so late as the 
25th of March, although the spring of that year was not 
later than ordinary. 
They breed here fully as early as in the north of England, oc- 
casionally even earlier than the latter end of Eebruary — the time 
mentioned by Mr. Selby. Lofty trees are generally selected for 
