this pair for some hours and saw a jackdaw sweep down on them
a dozen or more times at long intervals. Sometimes after
swooping down he would alight on the ledge a yard or two away,
and the male dove would then turn and face him, and if he then
began sidling up the dove would dash at and buffet him with
his wings with the greatest violence and throw him off. When
he swooped closer the dove would spring up and meet him in the
air, striking him at the moment of meeting, and again the daw
would be beaten. When I left three days after witnessing this
contest, the doves were still in possession of their nest, and
I concluded that they were not so entirely at the mercy of the
jackdaw as the old man had led me to believe.

It was, on this occasion, a great pleasure to listen to the
doves. The stock-dove has no set song, like the ringdove, but
like all the other species in the typical genus Columba it has
the cooing or family note, one of the most human-like sounds
which birds emit. In the stock-dove this is a better, more
musical, and a more varied sound than in any other Columba
known to me. The pleasing quality of the sound as well as the
variety in it could be well noted here where the birds were
many, scattered about on ledges and projections high above the
earth, and when bird after bird uttered its plaint, each
repeating his note half a dozen to a dozen times, one in slow
measured time, and deep-voiced like the rock-dove, but more
musical; another rapidly, with shorter, impetuous notes in a
higher key, as if carried away by excitement. There were not
two birds that cooed in precisely the same way, and the same
bird would often vary its manner of cooing.