Any of the species of pigeon that live in woods, as the stock-dove, Columba œnas, and (now esp.) the ring-dove, C. palumbus.
1668. Charleton, Onomast., 77. Columbæ Cavernalis … the Stock-dove, or Wood Pidgeon.
1743. Shenstone, Pastoral Ballad, II. v. I have found out a gift for my fair; I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.
1780. G. White, Selborne, Lett. to Pennant, 30 Nov. As to the wild wood-pigeon, the oenas, or vinago, of Ray, I … see no reason for making it the origin of the common house-dove; but suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have been misled by another appellation, often given to the oenas, which is that of stock-dove.
1837. P. Keith, Bot. Lex., 217. Knots or bunches … formed by means of a plexus of young shoots,… apt to be mistaken … for a wood-pigeon’s nest.
a. 1887. Jefferies, Field & Hedgerow, 303–4. The forest is not vacant…. Wood-pigeons and turtle-doves abound, the former in hundreds nesting here.
