448 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



I shall always remember my first sight of this charming little 

 dove. I was sitting alone in a small park in Tucson, Ariz., at Christ- 

 mastime when 15 of these birds appeared and walked about within 

 a few feet of me, picking at seeds on the ground. When they stooped 

 over for this purpose, their breasts nearly touched the earth, because 

 their legs were so short. As they walked their long tails generally 

 sloped gently downward so as barely to skim the ground, but at 

 times the tails were cocked up nearly vertically. When disturbed by 

 a passer-by, they flew up rapidly into the tree overhead, their wings 

 making a twittering sound. In the tree they sat in pairs or threes, 

 affectionately snuggled together like love birds, their heads sunk in 

 their breasts, their tails pointing straight down. They went to 

 sleep at once. This was at 4 p. m. ; at 4.20 they awoke and dropped 

 to the ground to feed again. 



G. F. Breninger (1897) writes: 



The strange way in which Inca doves go to roost at night has recently come 

 to my notice. Nearly a month ago, when the air at night was still chilly, I 

 saw seven of these little doves perched on a limb side by side. This in itself 

 was not strange, but directly upon the backs of the first row sat three more 

 doves. At another time I saw five in the lower row and two on top. An 

 examination of the ground beneath showed it to be a resort to which these 

 birds gathered to spend the cold nights of the winter months. 



F. C. Willard writes of watching an Inca dove in a grape arbor in 

 a walled-in garden in Tombstone, Ariz., when four others alighted on 

 the same lattice bar : 



The newcomer at the far end immediately began to assert herself by sidling 

 up to her next door neighbor and striking it with her wing. She soon forced 

 him to fly and in like manner went down the line forcing each of them to seek 

 another perch. Having thus made room for herself, she crouched as if content 

 to call it a day and take a nap. 



They are not all love birds ! 



The following account of the dove's behavior is by M. F. Gilman 

 (1911) : 



The vivacious little Inca dove is the cream of the dove family, and is in the 

 public eye or ear most of the time. Whether sitting on a barbed wire fence or 

 on a clothes line, with long tail hanging down perfectly plumb, or marching 

 around in a combative manner with tail erect at right angles to the body, or 

 rushing around busily and hurriedly, not to say greedily, feeding with the 

 chickens in the back yard, it shows a decided individuality and arouses interest 

 and affection. 



The faint twittering sound of the wings sometimes heard in flight 

 has already been mentioned, but as a rule the flight is noiseless. It is 

 a quick and jerky flight. 



Voice. — Simmons (1925) describes the voice thus: 



Monotonous, tiresome, extremely mournful, rather short two-syllabled, hard 

 little coo, quite different from the soft, soothing manner of the western mourn- 



