404 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Craig (1911), speaking of the "nest-calling attitude," calls atten- 

 tion to the display of the ornamented tail. He says : 



The male [sits] with his body tilted forward, tail pointing up at a high 

 angle, the head so low that bill and crop may rest on the floor, or if the bird 

 be in the nest, the head is down in the hollow. Both the voice and the attitude 

 of the male servo to attract the female, for in all pigeons Hie nest-call is 

 accompanied by a gentle flipping of the wings, ogling eyes, and a seductive 

 turning of the head. In addition to these general columbine gestures, Zenai- 

 dura has a special bit of display of his own, for during the first note of the 

 nest-call he spreads his tail just enough to show conspicuously the white marks 

 on the outer feathers ; soon as this first note is past, the tail closes and the 

 white marks disappear, to flash out again only with the next repetition of the 

 nest-call, before which there is always a considerable interval. 



Forbush (1927) says that " in courtship the male mourning dove 

 sometimes strikes his feet hard on his perch one after another." 



James G. Suthard, speaking of the bird in Kentucky, says in his 

 notes : 



During the nesting season, the female acts very much like the tame pigeon. 

 The male prances around with his neck feathers all ruffed up, cooing and 

 billing with the female. I have noticed that he sometimes picks up pieces of 

 grass in his courtship antics. The intrusion of another male on one of these 

 scenes results in a fight whereupon the female usually disappears. 



Nesting. — The mourning dove uses a very wide choice in selecting 

 a site for its nest. Perhaps the site most nearly typical is not far 

 from the trunk on a horizontal branch of an evergreen tree — a pine 

 or cedar — affording a firm foundation for the flimsy nest. The bird 

 frequently nests on the ground, however, even on a clump of grass, 

 sometimes on the stump of a tree, and there are several recorded 

 instances where the nest has been found placed on a wooden ledge 

 attached to an inhabited building. Indeed Gardner (1927) says that 

 the birds in Kansas ''preferred the vicinity of buildings to the 

 wooded and secluded canyons of the back country by a ratio of at 

 least ten to one." 



The chief requisite, apparently, is a level support that will give 

 stability to the nest, and to acquire this security the dove often makes 

 use of the experience of another species of bird and builds its owm 

 nest on a nest (for example, that of a robin, brown thrasher, or 

 mockingbird) that has weathered the previous winter. 



Bendire (1892) cites an extreme instance of this habit. Quoting 

 J. L. Davidson from Forest and Stream, he says : 



I found a black-billed cuckoo and a mourning dove sitting together on a 

 robin's nest. The cuckoo was the first to leave the nest. On securing the 

 nest I found it contained two eggs of the cuckoo, two of the mourning dove, and 

 one robin's egg. The robin had not quite finished the nest when the cuckoo took 

 possession of it and filled it nearly full of rootlets, but the robin got in and 

 laid one egg. 



