Page:White - The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.djvu/131

 dove in the winter varies greatly in manners from itself in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be domesticated, and to make an house-dove. We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor does it ever haunt the woods; but the former, as long as it stays with us, from November perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove, palumbus torquatus; frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would be settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do.

You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex; and are informed that they sometimes breed in that county. But why did not your correspondent determine the place of its nidification, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an adroit ornithologist I should doubt the fact, because people with us perpetually confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove.

For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many reasons. In the first place, the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common house-dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which generally enlarges the breed. Again, these two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each wing of the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of the species, would not, one should think, be totally lost by its being reclaimed; but would often break out among its descendants. But what is worth an hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir Roger Mostyn's house-doves, in Caernarvonshire; which, though tempted by plenty of food and gentle treatment, can never be prevailed on to inhabit