Its nest is usually a frail platform of twigs, if placed in a bush or tree, but 

 in many instances the eggs are laid on the ground, especially in the treeless west. 

 Unusual nesting sites are frequently selected, such as the abandoned nests of 

 other species of birds, tops of stumps, rocks, sheds, etc. 



Eggs — Pure white, and moderately glossy. Usual number two, sometimes 

 only one. 



Corn, the second in amount, was all old damaged grain taken from the 

 fields after the harvest, or from roads or stock yards in summer. The principal 

 and almost constant diet, however, is the seeds of weeds. These are eaten at 

 all seasons of the year. They constitute 64 per cent of the annual food supply, 

 and show very little variation during any month. Some of the seeds eaten were 

 so minute it would seem that none but the smallest species of birds would eat 

 them, and then only when driven to do so by lack of other food. Some instances 

 of the enormous numbers of seeds that individual birds consumed will be of 

 interest. In one stomach were found 7,500 seeds of the yellow wood-sorrel 

 (Oxalis stricta), in another 6,400 seeds of barn grass or fox-tail (Chactocloa) 

 and a third had eaten a variety of weed seeds, including 9,200 seeds. 



The three doves in question benefited the farmers on whose land they fed 

 by destroying 23,100 prospective weeds. Is there a farmer in this land who 

 would not \velcome as a friend the man who would offer to uproot and kill 

 23,100 weeds? Yet because the doves go about silently and unobtrusively, aud 

 make no loud boasts about the good they are doing, they are thought of little 

 or no value. In many sections of the country this valuable, harmless, and gentle 

 creature is considered as a semi-game bird, and is shot during a large part of 

 the year. It is a question for the farmers to settle whether they will permit 

 anyone to kill on their land birds that annually destroy tons of the seeds of pigeon 

 grass, ragweed, smartweed, bindweed, and many other noxious plants, and are 

 thus worth so much as helpers on farms. The matter resolves itself into a 

 question of figures, i. e., dollars and cents to the farmers. If three doves at one 

 meal destroy 23,100 weed seeds, and thus prevent the growth of the same number 

 of prospective weeds, how much good will all the doves on a farm or in a state, 

 or in the country at large accomplish? Or, to present the case in another way, 

 how much will it cost in time, labor and actual cash to destroy what the doves 

 will eat if they are protected and encouraged to remain on the farms? The 

 farmers in the United States spent in 1899 the enormous sum of $365,305,921 

 for labor; how much of this was paid for killing weeds, and how much of it 

 could have been saved if no doves had been killed but all had been protected and 

 permitted to perform the work that the Creator designed them to do ? The dove 

 is far too valuable an auxiliary to the agriculturists to have it classed as a game 

 bird. Its value consists in its weed-destroying activities, and not in the few 

 ounces of food it may furnish if shot as a game bird. It is a rival of bob white 

 as a weed seed destroyer. 



339 



