THE WOOD-PIGEON. By R.K. Murton. New Naturalist Monograph No. 20.

1965 1st edition. 8vo (140 x 206mm). Pp256. Colour and b/w plates, illustrations, maps, appendices and bibliography. Green buckram, spine titled in gilt.

"The wood pigeon is one of the most common, most interesting, and least studied of British birds. Before 1939 the chief authority upon the bird itself and its habits was probably Aristotle." [A bit of a stretch, that last assertion, but we take his point.] Chapters include: Pigeons; The pigeon in Britain; Feeding ecology; Social behaviour; Parental behaviour; Breeding biology; Age and population; Movements and migration; Diseases, parasites and poisons; The wood-pigeon as a pest; Shooting and crop protection. Appended are twenty-three tables, a taxonomy of the genus Columba, pigeon neospecies found as fossils, some foods eaten by wood-pigeon in East Anglia and scientific names of species mentioned in the text.