154 WOOD PIGEON. 
The Wood Pigeon is very good eating, except’ when in 
the winter it feeds on turnipn-tops, and then a disagreeable 
flavour is imparted to it. When they come home to roost 
in their accustomed trees in fir plantations, or tail oaks, ash, 
or other trees in woods, by lying in wait below they are 
easily to be procured, but in the open day they are shy, and 
not easily approached, unless it may be when engaged with 
their young. They are capabie of being tamed if brought 
up from the nest, and have even been xnown to shew some: 
personal attachment, perching on the head or shoulders of 
their friend, and eating out of the hand. I have seen them 
more than once kept in cottages, and sadly out of their 
element they have seemed. They have not flown away in 
some instances even when at liberty to do so. 
The late Frederick Holme, Esq., of Corpus Christi College, 
Oxford, wrote in the ‘Zoologist,’ page 1025, ‘One of a pair, 
kept in a cage, having made its escape, liberty was given 
to the other; but is continued about the grounds, at first 
descending warily from a tree to take the food left on the 
ground, then feeding from the hand from the lower branches, 
till at length it became so perfectly tame and familiar that 
it tapped with its bill at the window, and would come, 
though with caution, into the sitting-room.’ - 
Of another, tamed from the nest, the Rev. J. C. Atkimson 
writes in the ‘Zoologist,’ page 661, ‘When the evening 
approached I went to seek for him, and proceeded to call 
him by whistling the call I used when I fed him. He 
instantly responded, and flew to my shoulder or head, and 
was taken in for the night. Occasionally I neglected to do 
so until long after his roosting-hour, but he never once 
refused to come when [I called him; at last I ieft him out 
all night. He then roosted in some fir trees about a stone’s 
cast from the house. No sooner did I make my appearance 
in the garden in the morning than I was sure to see him 
come flying to me for his breakfast; and at any time in 
the day, if I omitted to feed him at the stated intervals, 
he came to remind me of my neglect as soon as he saw 
me. Soon after he was regularly turned out in the day-time, 
I had taken him to the bed of peas, and there indulged 
him with the green peas, of which he was particularly fond; 
but he did not like the trouble of shelling them for himself; 
and if he saw me in that part of the garden, and was at 
all hungry, he generally flew first to me and then to the 
