418 BULLETIN" 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



fields. It shuns habitations, and is seldom seen in cultivated land; in fact, it 

 feeds but little on tbe ground. Its flesh is excellent. 



P. H. Gosse (1847) says that in Jamaica: 



The open pastures, or the grassy glades of pimento pens, are the favourite 

 haunts of this pretty Dove, where it walks on the ground singly or in pairs. 

 In such open situations, it can discover, and mark the motions of an intruder, 

 and long before he is within gun-range it is upon the wing. When the rains 

 have ceased, the increasing drought renders these, as it does many other birds, 

 more familiar; and they may be seen lingering on the borders of streams and 

 ponds. Indeed they seem, of all our Doves, to haunt most the vicinity of water : 

 particularly those dreary swamps or morasses which are environed by tall 

 woods of mangrove. In the winter months, when the pastures are burnt up 

 with drought, we may hear all day long their plaintive cooing, proceeding 

 from these sombre groves, though it is not much heard in any other situation. 



Nesting. — Audubon (1840) writes: 



Those Keys which have their interior covered with grass and low shrubs, 

 and are girt by a hedge of mangroves, or other trees of inferior height, are 

 selected by them for breeding; and as there are but few of this description, 

 their places of resort are well known and are called Pigeon or Dove Keys. 

 It would be useless to search for them elsewhere. They are by no means so 

 abundant as the White-headed Pigeons, which place their nest on any kind of 

 tree, even on those whose roots are constantly submerged. Groups of such trees 

 occur of considerable extent, and are called Wet Keys. 



The Zenaida Dove always places her nest on the ground, sometimes artlessly 

 at the foot of a low bush, and so exposed that it is easily discovered by any- 

 one searching for it. Sometimes, however, it uses great discrimination, placing 

 it between two or more tufts of grass, the tops of which it manages to bend 

 over so as completely to conceal it. The sand is slightly scooped out, and the 

 nest is composed of slender dried blades of grass, matted in a circular form, 

 and imbedded amid dry leaves and twigs. The fabric is more compact than 

 the nest of any other Pigeon with which I am acquainted, it being sufficiently 

 solid to enable a person to carry the eggs or young in it with security. The 

 eggs are two, pure white, and translucent. When sitting on them, or when 

 her young are still small, this bird rarely removes from them, unless an 

 attempt be made to catch her. which she, however, evades with great dexterity. 

 On several occasions of this kind, I have thought that the next moment would 

 render me the possessor of one of these Doves alive. Her beautiful eye was 

 steadily bent on mine, in which she must have discovered my intention, her 

 body was gently made to retire sidewise to the farther edge of her nest, as 

 my hand drew nearer to her, and just as I thought I had hold of her, off she 

 glided with the quickness of thought, taking to wing at once. She would 

 then alight within a few yards of me and watch my motions with so much 

 sorrow, that her wings drooped, and her whole frame trembled as if suffering 

 from intense cold. Who could stand such a scene of despair? I left the 

 mother to her eggs or offspring. 



Gosse (1847) describes its nesting habits in Jamaica quite differ- 

 ently, as follows : 



The nest is, as usual, a loose platform of twigs interlaced, with scarcely 

 any hollow, and no leaves ; it. is often built in an orange, or a pimento, and 

 contains two eggs of a drab hue. Near the end of March we started a Pea- 

 dove from the centre of a lofty Ebby palm (Elate) in Mount Edgecumbe; it 



