ROCK-DOVE. 24? 
Nest. — Composed only of a few sticks or roots, and very 
frequently there is none at all, the eggs being laid on the wood 
at the bottom of a hole, or on the bare sand in a rabbit-burrow. 
Mr. Robert Read writes to me “I have found fresh eggs of 
this bird in Somersetshire as early as March and as late as 
September, in both instances in the hollow head of a pollard 
willow. I have also taken the nest from a rabbit-hole in a 
wooded hill-side.” The species also breeds in holes of trees 
and cliffs, on beams in old church towers, old nests of other 
birds, and squirrel’s dreys. 
Eggs. — Two. Pure glossy white. Axis, i-5-f65 inches; 
diam., i-i-f25. 
III. THE ROCK-DOVE. COLUMBA LIVIA. 
Columba livia, Bonn. Enc. Meth. i. p. 227 (1790)1 Macgill. 
Brit. B. i. p. 268 (1837); Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. ii, 
pl- 457 (1879); B. O. U. List. Brit. B. p. 139 (1883); 
Saunders, ed. Yarrell’s Brit. B. iii.p. 13 (i883) ; Seebohm, 
Hist Brit. B. ii. p. 405 (1884); Saunders, Man. Brit. B. 
p. 471 (1889); Salvad. Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxi. p. 252 
(1893) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xxx. (1895). 
Adult Male. — General colour above delicate grey ; the wing- 
coverts like the back, the greater series with a black band 
across the middle, forming a wing-bar ; bastard-wing, primary- 
coverts, and quills grey, dusky on the outer webs and at the 
ends ; the secondaries grey at the base, with broad blackish 
ends ; the inner secondaries black, with a sub-terminal bar of 
grey, ^ the innermost grey towards the ends, which have a 
narrow dusky edging ; lower back pure white ; rump and 
upper tail-coverts slaty-blue, a little darker than the back; 
tail-feathers slaty-blue, with a broad sub-marginal band of 
black • crown of head slaty-blue, as also the sides of the face 
and throat ; the sides of the neck and the entire hind-neck 
metallic lilac or green, according to the light, this metallic 
colour extending all over the fore-neck and chest ; remainder 
of the under surface of the body clear slaty-grey, a little 
darker on the under tail-coverts; under wing-coverts and 
axillaries white, with the edge of the wing grey, the quill- 
