244 
allen’s naturalist’s library 
returning very early one morning with eight Wood-Pigeons in 
his hands, and I asked him how he got them. ‘ At one shot,” he 
replied, “ Mr. Mills told me that the Pigeons were working his 
peas, and asked me to scare them if I could. So I went down to 
Widbrook, and hid myself behind the hedge on the common. 
After a long wait, I saw a bird walking among the peas and 
fired at it. On going to pick it up, I found seven others had 
been knocked over at the same time.” Besides peas and grain 
the Wood-Pigeons devour great quantities of beech-mast, and 
I have more than once shot them from beech woods, when 
their crops have been so full of mast, that they have actually 
split open with their fall. 
At the present day one does not need to go to the woods 
to study the habits of this pretty bird, for it is now a plentiful 
inhabitant of the London parks. Years ago I have seen them 
stalking about quite tamely in the Champs Elys^es and the 
gardens of the Luxembourg, in Paris, and now they are equally 
tame in Kensington Gardens and St. James’s Park, in London, 
and one pair, at least, seems to have taken up their abode in 
the grounds of the Natural History Museum, during the 
present spring (1897). 
Nest. — This is a poorly constructed platform of crossed twigs, 
and is placed in all kinds of situations; in low bushes, in high 
trees, in thick ivy, and sometimes on the deserted nests of 
other birds, or squirrels. When placed in a thorn-bush or 
some such situation, the framework of the nest is so slight 
that the white eggs can be seen through the twigs from below. 
Eggs. — Two, exceptionally three, in number. Pure white, 
and glos.sy. Axis, i’55-i'7S inches; diam., it 5 -i- 25 . 
II. THE STOCK-DOVE. COLUMBA CENA.S. 
Columha (pt.), Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 279 (1766) ; Macgill. 
Brit. B. i. p. 287 (1837) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. 23, 
pi. 458(1876); B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 138 (1883); 
Saunders, ed. Yarrell’s Brit. B. iii. p. 8 (1883); Seebohm, 
Hist. Brit. B. ii. p. 401 (1884); Saunders, Man. Brit. B. 
p. 469(1889); Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xx. (1891); 
Salvai Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxi. p. 261 (1893). 
{Pla/e CXXII.) 
