[Illustration]
Columba Palumbus, LINNÆUS; Le Pigeon Ramier, BUFFON; Die
Ringeltaube, BECHSTEIN.
This is the largest of the European wild pigeons, being in length
seventeen inches and a half. Some naturalists suppose this to be the
parent stock of our large domestic pigeons; but it cannot be
domesticated so easily as the stock dove, and never mixes with the
common pigeons in the fields. It does not, moreover, retire into
hollows, like these, but lives and builds in open and exposed places.
The beak is reddish white; the iris is pale yellow; the shanks are
reddish; the head and throat are dark ash grey; the front of the neck
and the breast are purplish ash grey; the sides and back of the neck are
fine iridescent purple; an almost crescent-shaped white streak adorns
the sides of the neck towards the base, without quite surrounding it;
the belly, the vent, and the thighs, are very pale grey; the sides are
light ash grey; the upper part of the back, the scapulars, and the
lesser wing-coverts, are light brownish ash grey; the coverts of the
primary quill-feathers are black; the remaining greater coverts are pale
ash grey; the tail is dark ash grey, deepening into black at the
extremity.
In the female the streaks on the sides of the neck are not so wide as in
the male; her breast is paler, and all the wing-coverts are an obscure
grey.
HABITATION.--This species, found in Europe and Asia within the
temperate zone, is very common in the woods of Germany and Britain:
it quits us the beginning of October, in small flights, and does not
return till the middle of March, and sometimes later, always some
weeks after the stock dove. During harvest it frequents small groves
and detached thickets, to be nearer the corn fields.
FOOD.--It feeds on all kinds of corn and leguminous seeds, myrtle
berries, with the seeds of pines and firs. When a ring dove is caught
it must be first fed on wheat, and other species of corn should by
degrees be mixed with it, but not oats. It will only live a few years
in the house.
BREEDING.--This species builds in trees, and forms its nest of dried
branches, but so carelessly that a rather high wind will often blow
it down. The female has two broods in the year, and lays two large
white eggs each time. It succeeds very well to place these eggs under
a domestic pigeon, and if care is taken to prevent the young birds
from migrating in autumn they will afterwards remain in the pigeon
house, going out and returning like the other pigeons that inhabit
it; but I have never observed that they pair with them; I have
sometimes seen the ring dove tread the domestic pigeon, but as yet
nothing has resulted from it; future experiments may perhaps decide
this point.
MODE OF TAKING.--This is the same as with the stock dove. Ring doves
taken when old rarely eat, and die of hunger if they are not crammed,
like young pigeons.
ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES.--Besides being a fine bird, the male coos in a
very pleasing and sonorous manner, moving all the time around his
mate, now before, then behind, hopping close to her side, and turning
his head in every direction. It may be rendered very tame.