[Three Hundred Animals Contents]
APPEARS to have been the origin of all the tribes of the pigeon kind. They generally build their nests either in holes of rocks or in excavated trees, and are, when taken young, easily brought to a domesticated state. They however preserve their original colour through several generations, and become by degrees more diversified in their plumage; a circumstance which is remarkable in all quadrupeds or birds, who, from the free but wild state of nature are brought to the easier mode of domestic life. The colour of the Stock Dove is generally of a deep slate or lead tint, with rings of black about the feathers. Their murmuring strains, in the morning and at dusk, is most pleasing and throws an agreeable melancholy on the solitude of the grove. The poet of the seasons expresses it in the following lines, with a beautiful instance of imitative harmony after describing the full band of the woodland choristers with elegance and truth, he concludes,
– the Stock Dove breathes
A melancholy murmur thro’ the whole.
———————————————SPRING.
