The food of these numberless emigrants was beech-mast
and some acorns; and particularly barley, which they collected in
the stubbles. But of late years, since the vast increase of turnips,
that vegetable has furnished a great part of their support in hard
weather; and the holes they pick in these roots greatly damage the
crop. From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness which
occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who
thought them before a delicate dish. They were shot not only as
they were feeding in the fields, and especially in snowy weather,
but also at the close of the evening, by men who lay in ambush
among the woods and groves to kill them as they came in to roost.*
These are the principal circumstances relating to this wonderful
internal migration, which with us takes place towards the end of
November, and ceases early in the spring. Last winter we had in
Selborne high wood about an hundred of these doves; but in former
times the flocks were so vast not only with us but all the district
round, that on mornings and evenings they traversed the air, like
rooks, in strings, reaching for a mile together.
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