JES ; WOOD PIGEON. 
any other; and with respect to the individual in’ question, 
my firm impression is, that had I stayed at home until the 
breeding-season, at the arrival of which time he might 
probably have left me; but even then I should have expected 
him to pay me frequent visits for food, and most likely to 
have nested in the immediate vicinity of the house. 
It is well known that few birds are wilder and more 
distrustful than the Ring Dove in autumn and winter; but 
that at the approach of spring they throw off much of their 
wildness, and become comparatively familiar and confiding; 
and it appears to me somewhat remarkable that the strongest 
case of this change of their habits I ever heard of, has since 
occurred in the garden about which my tame Dove spent his 
time. A pair of these birds nested in a shrub about twenty 
yards from the front of the house. Under the shrub was placed 
a garden chair, which was usually occupied several hours in 
the day. Reading aloud was frequently resorted to by the 
parties occupying the chair; and three or four children were 
pursuing their sports all round, and, like all other children, 
did not always pursue them in ‘solemn silence.’ But this © 
was not all.—The nest was not six feet from the ground, and 
visitors were often introduced to the sitting bird, who, 
seeming to care nothing for the close approximation of 
human eyes to her own, sat on in spite of all, and in due 
time hatched. This regardlessness of the eye of man has 
always seemed to me very strange. Look steadfastly at your 
favourite dog, and he turns away his eye in apparent uneasiness, 
and will not look at you, even though you eall him, while 
he suspects you are still gazing at him. ‘The wild-fowl 
shooter will tell you to be careful not to look at the 
approaching flight of Wild Ducks, for they will ‘see your 
eye’ and turn another way. Walk under the tree in your 
garden, where the Ring Dove is sitting, take no notice of 
her, and she will take none of you: come back again and 
look steadfastly at her as you pass, and in nineteen cases 
out of twenty she will fly off. Yet in the case I am des- 
eribing, the visitor’s eye was often not more than two feet 
from the bird, and unless it was long fixed on her, she never 
moved. During the time of incubation, the male, or that 
bird which was not sitting, for I believe the male relieves 
the female for a space of seven or eight hours every day— 
the Domestic Pigeon certainly does—was generally to be 
seen sitting in an ash tree at the bottom of the garden. A 
