THE WOOD PIGEON. 
745 
Occasionally the Wood Pigeon builds no nest of its own, 
but lays its eggs in an abandoned squirrel’s dray, or 
Magpie’s nest, which needs but little labour to render it 
fit for use. The eggs are laid by the end of April: they 
are white, and somewhat small in proportion to the size 
of the bird. Both birds assist in the business of incuba¬ 
tion, taking turn and turn about, for from seventeen to 
eighteen days; the female sitting from three in the after¬ 
noon till nine in the morning, the male being on duty for 
the rest of the day. It is in the rearing of her young that 
the character of the Pigeon is seen to the greatest dis¬ 
advantage : she is, together with other allied species, 
perhaps, without exception, the worst and most heart¬ 
less of mothers, one indeed that will forsake her callow 
brood if she is in the slightest degree disturbed. This 
unnatural parent will even abandon a newly-hatched 
nestling, and leave it to starve, if its companion is taken 
out of the nest. If undisturbed, the parent birds rear 
their offspring without trouble or self-sacrifice : they feed 
them at first with the cheese-like secretion from the crop, 
to which"we have before alluded, and later on with half- 
digested seeds. They only feed their young twice in the 
day, giving them, however, a large quantity on each 
occasion. The nestlings are fed by the old birds for 
some little time subsequently to their leaving the nest, 
after which they must learn to cater for themselves, as 
the parents soon set about rearing their second brood. 
The Wood Pigeon may be looked upon as quite harm¬ 
less, for the small amount of grain which it consumes 
from off fresh-sown fields is scarcely worth speaking of. 
Its favourite food is the seed of different species of pine; 
this is chiefly gathered from off the ground, or those 
cones which have burst open. Besides the aforesaid, it 
