170 
EXTRACTS FROM HIS WORKS [ch. vii. 
its plumage, and assumed the bright and beautiful 
tints of the adult male. Whenever I escaped from 
the detested pages of Virgil and Horace, the pigeon 
was sure to fly to me, and sometimes alighted on 
my head or shoulder, directing its bill towards my 
mouth, and flapping its wings. Nor did it ever fly 
off with the wild pigeons, which almost every day 
fed near the house, although it had no companions 
of its own species. At length some fatal whim 
induced it to make an excursion to a village about 
a mile distant, when it alighted on the roof of a 
hut, and the boys pelted it dead with stones. Long 
and true was my sorrow for my lost companion; 
the remembrance of it will probably continue as 
long as life. I have since mourned the loss of a 
far dearer dove. They were gentle and lovely 
beings; but while the one has been blended with 
the elements, the other remains “hid with Christ 
in God,” and for it I “mourn not as those who 
have no hope .”—British Birds , vol. i., pp. 275, 276. 
6 .—A Winter Bird Scene at the Mouth of 
the Almond. 
The tide is out, and on the muddy flat at the 
mouth of the Almond you observe vast collections 
of rooks and gulls. Small flocks of ducks are 
swimming about in the stream, and groups of 
sandpipers are diligently probing the mud along 
