We shall only be able to tell you about two members of the great pigeon family, the first of which shall be the wood-pigeon, or ring-dove, which is interesting as the wild original that has given us our domestic pigeons, so many varieties of which have been produced by fanciers. This is a very common bird in almost all parts of the British Isles, and one can scarcely walk through a wood without startling it from its retreat in the thick foliage of some tall tree, or ramble through the fields without seeing at least one flock on its way to its feeding-grounds. Unfortunately, it does a good deal of mischief, for it has a most enormous appetite, and carries off immense quantities of grain from the cornfields. Just to give you some idea of the amount of food that it will eat, we may mention that no less than eight hundred grains of wheat have been taken from the crop of a single wood-pigeon, six hundred peas from that of another, and one hundred and eighty beechnuts from that of a third; while one naturalist tells us that the bird will sometimes pack away enough turnip-tops to fill a pint measure when they are well shaken up! Our American turtle-dove, or mourning-dove, is much like this but nobody minds the few bits of grain it picks up. On the other hand, the wood-pigeon devours great quantities of the seeds of weeds; so although it is mischievous in one way, it is useful in another. The nest of the wood-pigeon, which is mostly placed in the upper branches of a tall tree, is very clumsily made. Indeed, it is very little more than a platform of sticks, which are often so loosely put together, that as you look up from below you can see the eggs through the gaps between them! There are never more than two eggs, which are perfectly white. THE PASSENGER-PIGEON The passenger-pigeon, or wild pigeon of North America, is remarkable for two reasons. In the first place, it is (or rather, used to be) found in the most astonishing numbers. Flocks of these birds _many miles in length_ have often been seen, while large tracts of forest were once so thronged with their nests that all the smaller branches and many of the larger ones were broken down. Fancy what that means when a nesting-place is thirty miles long and several miles broad, while as many as a hundred nests may be found in a single tree! In the second place, the bird is renowned as a traveler. That is why it is called the passenger-pigeon. All over the length and breadth of the country a few years ago these vast flocks would fly, coming no man knows whence, going no man knows whither, roosting just for one night in one place, and passing on again early next morning. The flocks are not so large as they were, however, for many millions of the birds have been destroyed; and as these pigeons never lay more than two eggs, they do not multiply very fast. In fact, this pigeon is already a rare bird. PEACOCKS