But what is worth an
hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir Roger Mostyn's
house-doves, in Caernarvonshire; which, though tempted by plenty
of food and gentle treatment, can never be prevailed on to inhabit
their cote for any time; but as soon as they begin to breed, betake
themselves to the fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young
in safety amidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices of that
stupendous promontory.
Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.
I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, who
tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen woods
were much more extensive than at present, the number of wood-
pigeons was astonishing; that he has often killed near twenty in a
day; and that with a long wildfowl piece he has shot seven or eight
at a time on the wing as they came wheeling over his head: he
moreover adds, which I was not aware of, that often there were
among them little parties of small blue doves, which he calls
rockiers.
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