186 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



straight on a horizontal limb, the other end fitted 

 against a good-sized twig. The concave side was 

 up. On one end of this insecure platform, the 

 doves had heaped a few coarse sticks and twigs 

 for a nest, in which the mother bird was now 

 brooding. The nest was so low that I could locate 

 it on my finder by extending my tallest tripod full 

 length and standing on a box about eighteen inches 

 high to operate the camera. I secured of this bird 

 my only pictures of a brooding dove, with the 

 exception of the mediocre one just described. 

 This bird brooded sidewise to the lens so that the 

 line from the tip of her beak to the tip of her 

 tail was unbroken. I began several rods away, 

 but she soon told me that I could come into her 

 location, set up my camera, take her picture, and 

 go away. I could not move the camera a few feet 

 closer by walking it forward on the tripod legs, as 

 I constantly did with other birds. She would 

 not endure having the camera move one inch toward 

 her. As each approach gave rne a more beautiful 

 picture of her, I kept working closer, perhaps two 

 or three feet at a time, but for every exposure, 

 I was forced to take down the camera and tripod, 

 carry them away, and remain awhile. Then, I 

 could go back, approach the nest a few feet closer, 

 and repeat the performance. Doves are univer- 

 sally lauded for their gentle, loving characteristics. 

 They have ;i habit cf searching the open roads for 

 grain dribbling from passing wagons and the un- 



