ROCK DOVE. 
ROCKIER. 
Columba livia, SELBY. JENYNS. GOULD. 
Columba—A Pigeon, or Dove. Livia—( Quare, for Livida—Black 
and blue—lead-colour.) 
IF you look at each and every one of the Pigeons that fly 
about the barn and fold-yard, or rise in a flock from the open 
field, nay, if you glance at any of those that hang up in the 
poulterer’s shop in the narrowest street in London,—in even 
which, by the way, you can, if your lot is cast in the great 
city, make frequent ornithological observations, and, losing 
yourself for a moment in pleasing thought in the Haymarket, 
the Turnstile, the Rookery, the Grove, or the Strand —apolo- 
gies now for the scenes that gave them their names of old— 
realize the ‘rus in urbe,—you will see that every individual 
bird, let the varied colours of its plumage be what they 
may, has a patch of white over the tail. This will at once 
shew you that it must derive its origin from the species at 
present before us, which has the like distinguishing mark, 
and not, as might naturally be supposed by any one who 
was not cognizant of the fact, from the common Wild 
Pigeon of the woods. 
The name of this species designates its habits of life, as a 
dweller among rocks and cliffs of the sea-girt isle or the 
mainland; but in the interior it puts up with old ruins or 
towers. It is a native of the former situations in Denmark, 
Norway, and Sweden, in the rocky islands of the Mediterranean, 
eastward as far as Greece, and northward to the Ferroe 
Islands; and likewise occurs in North Africa, Madeira, and 
Teneriffe; ; and in Asia—in Japan and Persia. 
