2The stock-dove is not the common wild pigeon. The pigeons usually found in England are the ring-dove, which makes its nests on trees, and is called the cushat, or in Shropshire the quice, the stock-dove, which breeds in holes in trees, and also in rabbit holes; the rock-dove, and the pretty little turtle-dove, which builds so slight a nest in a tree or big bush that the small white eggs can be seen through it from below.
3Whin-chats migrate, but stone-chats do not as a rule.
4 The yellow-wagtail migrates, but the pied and grey wagtails do not.
LETTER XL.
Selborne, Sept. 2nd, 1774.
Dear Sir,—Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been remarking and comparing the tails of the male and
The Nightingale (Philomela luscinia.)
female swallow, and this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no danger of confounding the dams with their pulli: and besides, as they were then always in pairs, and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be no room for mistaking the