It is still common in Hungary.
It is common in some parts of England, but is very local in its visitations and is only a summer visitor. A “Son of the Marshes,” says, “It is common enough in some parts of Surrey. I have seen from ten to thirty of them rise from the standing oats, or from the long grass in the hayfield, at one flight. One of my friends shot a couple as they were rising from the oats, and opened their crops. Not a single grain of oat did he find in them. They were full of a little vetch that grew abundantly at the roots of the oats, or, to express it in true rustic agricultural phrase, ‘at the stam o’ the whuts.’ I was with the man at the time; after that examination of the birds’ crops he declared he would never shoot another pigeon.”
Another member of this family, the beautiful Ring Dove or Wood Pigeon (Colúmba palumbus), called Queest in Ireland, and Cushat in the North, because of its soft notes, is a bird that we could ill-spare from our woods and coppices. It is, however, an undeniable fact that the members of this voracious species have increased of late years in a manner which is alarming to the hard-working farmer. Many writers have taken up the cudgels in defence of these birds on account mainly of the amount of noxious weeds, wild mustard seed, and leaves they devour, but, as that great naturalist, the late Lord Lilford, wrote, in sending me a little box of the contents of the crops of three birds extracted by himself: “In a highly-farmed country these weeds hardly exist; and,” he added, “in my opinion his good deeds are in no way comparable to the damage done. I have frequently, when shooting Wood Pigeons in the winter months, seen their crops burst on coming down dead from a height, from distension with hearts, acorns, barley, and turnip-tops.” The contents of the three birds’ crops sent to me were 129 peas, 85 beans, and some broken vegetable matter.
The amount of good or of harm done by this species varies, as in the case of other birds, according to the weather and the scarcity or plenty of their natural food about the woods and the lands skirting these. Considering the numbers that breed in our midst the farmers might well thin these, and send a better supply of birds to the market.
The Turtle Dove is smaller than the Pigeon, slenderer, and it has a more stately form. Crown and brow are a beautiful grey, cheeks and ear parts flushed with rust colour. On each side of the neck it has an ornament of black and white dots arranged in rows. The mantle is ashen-grey with dark specks which have a reddish border. The rump is ashen-grey with a shade of rust colour. Throat and breast reddish, melting into violet; the under-parts are white. The wings are black, shaded with slate colour; tail slate colour; four, at least, of the tail feathers have white tips. Beak black, the irides fiery red; legs blood-red. The young birds are of soberer colour. The nest is placed in thickets and is well hidden. It is composed of little branches and twigs, very lightly put together—indeed so loose and open is it, that the eggs and the sitting hen can be seen through it. It lays two white eggs.
CHAPTER VII.
SOME WILDFOWL.
The Lapwing.
(Vanéllus vulgáris.)
The reedlands and meadow-lands, moist fields, marsh and lake districts, would be desolate and lifeless without the beautiful Lapwings. They wheel and flap, and twist, and wheel again, on the large open uplands, so that their varied plumage almost dazzles the eye, and when several pairs frequent the same field they embellish air and sky. When the nesting time arrives the whole neighbourhood resounds with the call which the bird utters while in flight. The call-note sounds like “Keevit,” from which, of course, its name is taken. The pairing note sounds like “Ka kerkhoit, kewit, kewit, kewit, kewit.” It can run well and quickly on the ground. If a dog or a crow approaches the nest it flies at it with a loud, despairing cry, “Chrait,” and strikes at the enemy with its beak; if a man shows himself it practices all kinds of cunning tricks. It flies along near the ground, repeatedly stopping, and so lures him away from the nest. The eggs of the Lapwing are much sought after. Its usual food consists of worms, the various kinds of snails, chafers, grasshoppers. In autumn it covers the fields and meadows in great flocks like a cloud, and destroys the pests of agriculture. It departs in winter. It is recommended for protection both on account of its beauty and its usefulness.
USEFUL.