ields
almost a foot deep, they were silent, but were constantly observed
flying to and fro. Immediately it became milder they recommenced to coo,
so that at intervals the note of the wood-pigeon was heard in the
adjacent house from October, all through the winter, till the nesting
time in May. Sometimes towards sunset in the early spring they all
perched together before finally retiring on the bare, slender tips of
the tall birch trees, exposed and clearly visible against the sky.

Six once alighted in a row on a long birch branch, bending it down with
their weight like a heavy load of fruit. The stormy sunset flamed up,
tinting the fields with momentary red, and their hollow voices sounded
among the trees. By May they had paired off, and each couple had a part
of the copse to themselves. Instead of avoiding the house, they seemed,
on the contrary, to come much nearer, and two or three couples built
close to the garden.

Just there, the wood being bare of undergrowth, there was nothing to
obstruct the sight but some few dead hanging branches, and the pigeons
or ringdoves could be seen continually flying up and down from the
ground to their nests. They were so near that the darker marking at the
end of the tail, as it was spread open to assist the upward flight to
the branch, was visible. Outside the garden gate, and not more than
twenty yards distant, there stood three young spruce firs, at the edge
of the copse, but without the boundary. To the largest of these one of
the pigeons came now and then; he was half inclined to choose it for his
nest.

The noise of their wings as they rose and threshed their strong feathers
together over the tops of the trees was often heard, and while in the
garden one might be watched approaching from a distance, swift as the
wind, then suddenly half-closing his wings and shooting forwards, he
alighted among the boughs. Their coo is not in any sense tuneful; yet it
has a pleasant association; for the ringdove is pre-eminently the bird
of the woods and forests, and rightly named the wood-pigeon. Yet though
so associated with the deepest and most lonely woods, here they were
close to the house and garden, constantly heard, and almost always
visible; and London, too, so near. They seemed almost as familiar as the
sparrows and starlings.

These pigeons were new inhabitants; but turtle-doves had built in the
copse since I knew it. They were late coming the last spring I watched
them; but,