ROCK.-D0VE. 
249 
Habits.— The late Dr. Saxby has given the following account 
'very^°dtffiSr lo 'approach" under ordinary 
'is r:te‘=rrs.. 
rs ; f .. 
easv to shoot the Doves as they fly m and out of their caves , 
bu/ the practice is dangerous, from the risk one runs 
shaking dLn loose fragments of stone, as well as «uel, on 
account of the impossibility of entering the caves in any but 
the calm weather of the more genial seasons of the year, when, 
of course, the birds are breeding. vnrious other 
“ The Rock -Dove feeds m company with various otner 
species such as Redwings, Twites, Buntings, and tame 
species, sueu ° the latter circumstance that 
panhcoloured birds are so frequently met with in the flocks. 
In winter during hard frost, it descends to the shingly beaches, 
wh^re h picks Ip small seeds among the weathered plants 
b difficult to convince farmers that at least it does some 
little good. But in this case, as in all other similar cases, the 
wilest bourse is merely to give a simple, unprejudiced record of 
foots Sing truth to work its own way, as it inevitably w.U m 
the end To state that any living thing is probably useful to 
r^Lkffid is but to divide one’s hearers into two classes, the one 
dLouring for its extermination, the other prepared to Protect 
h to anTniurious extent; and a precisely similar result would 
have been sure to follow an opinion that it was uselep or hurtful. 
When its enemies see it upon the sheaves, they at once begin 
to argue as if this were its constant habit all the year round, 
and Renter into the most intricate calcu ations as to he 
prffiiabk number of bushels thus consumed during the twelve 
months. Similarly, its would-be friends are triumphant when, 
nn opening the crop of a Rock-Dove shot in a stubble field, 
some confiderable time after the corn has been cleared, it is 
found to be filled with the seeds and roots of noxious weeds, 
with merely a few grains of oats or barley intermixed, quite 
n^rlooS the fact that had the grain been abundant the 
weeds would have been despised, as indeed I have ascertained 
