214 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX.
Order COLUMBAE.
Family COLUMBIDAE.
Ring-dove Columba palumbus. Locally "Ring-Dow."
A far too-abundant resident, especially in well-wooded districts.
They are unquestionably very injurious to the farmer. In Epping
Forest they are especially abundant.
Round Orsett, where there is not much wood-
land, it is not very numerous (Sackett). The
Rev. J. C. Atkinson says (23. 666) :
"It is a common belief in Essex that, if you
touch—still more, if you breathe on—the Ring-
dove's eggs, she will forsake them. It is, how-
ever, totally without foundation ; for I remember
when a school-boy testing its truth."
About the end of July, 1875, I took two rather
hard-set Turtle Dove's eggs from a nest in a wood
here. A few days later I was surprised by noticing
that the nest had increased considerably in size,
and about ten days after I was informed that it
had been utilized by a Wood-pigeon as the founda-
tion for its own nest, and that an egg of that bird
had been taken from it (34. x. 4723).
In March, 1883, I heard of a white variety hav-
ing been seen about the woods near Audley
End.
Stock-dove : Columba trims. Locally " Wild Blue Rock
Pigeon" (Orsett).
A common bird throughout the county, and I believe increasing.
It may often be found nesting as early as February and as late as
October.
Henry Doubleday writes (10) from Epping in June, 1840 : " If I had known
that you wanted any Stock Dove's eggs, I could have got more early in the spring.
They often lay in February." King speaks of it (20) as " common " round Sud-
bury in 1838. Mr. Clarke says (24) that about 1845 it bred round Saffron Wal-
den, but was " not very common."
I have taken many nests in the county—all, with one exception, in hollow trees
or in the crowns of ivy-covered pollards. The exception was a nest I took in May,
1880, in a rabbit's hole in the side of a railway cutting near Saffron Walden. Mr.
Benton, however, says (35. 189) that on Foulness " it sometimes breeds in rabbit-
holes," and a good many breed in holes in the old keep of Hedingham Castle.
[Rock-dove : Columba livia.
Mr. Kerry believes (46. 252) that he has received the truly wild form
of this bird from Walton-on-the-Naze, but I cannot help thinking that