ZENAIDA DOVE 419 



immediately alighted on the ground just before my lad, and began to tumble 

 about in a grotesque manner, affecting inability to fly. Sam was not to be 

 caught, however ; but calling my attention to the circumstance, we began to 

 peer among the fronds of the tree, where we presently discerned the project- 

 ing ends of the twigs that constituted her nest, the centre of her fears and 

 anxieties. It was inaccessible, however, when discovered. 



Doctor Barbour (1923) says that " Gundlach found nests from 

 April to July," in Cuba, " the usual shabby platform with two eggs, 

 on bunches of epiphytic bromeliads or on some horizontal limb." 

 Stuart T. Danforth (1925) found the Porto Kican form nesting still 

 differently ; he says : 



At the lagoon a few of these doves forsake their usual nesting sites and 

 nest in the cat-tails. I found two such nests in 1924. The first was a crude 

 platform of twigs on some bent cat-tail leaves in a dense clump on Las Casitas. 

 It was three feet above the water, which was two feet deep at that place. On 

 May 13 it contained two white eggs, but the nest was so frail it fell to pieces 

 before the eggs had time to hatch. The second nest was built of dry cat-tail 

 leaves and placed in the cat-tails at a height of four feet from the water, which 

 was two inches deep at that time. When I found it on May 27 it contained 

 two egg shells from which the young had hatched but the young birds were 

 nowhere to be seen. 



And all the nests that Dr. Henry Bryant (1861) found in the 

 Bahamas " were made in holes in the rocks, and consisted, as is 

 always the case in this family, of but a few sticks." 



Eggs. — The eggs of the Zenaida dove are two in number, oval, but 

 more rounded than doves' eggs usually are, and pure white. The 

 measurements of 17 eggs average 29.6 by 22.8 millimeters; the eggs 

 showing the four extremes measure 34 by 23, 31 by 24.5, and 25.2 by 

 19.8 millimeters. 



Plumages. — I have not seen enough specimens in immature or 

 transition plumages to say much on this subject. Young birds in 

 juvenal plumage seem to be similar to adults, but paler or duller, 

 with more whitish on the chin and without the iridescent colors. An 

 adult, taken July 10, is completing the molt of wings and tail, which 

 indicates that the complete molt begins early. 



Food. — Audubon (1840) says of the food of this dove: 



The flesh is excellent, and they are generally very fat. They feed on grass 

 seeds, the leaves of aromatic plants, and various kinds of berries, not excepting 

 those of a tree w T hich is extremely poisonous, — so much so, that if the juice of 

 it touch the skin of a man, it destroys it like aquafortis. Yet these berries do 

 not injure the health of the birds, although they render their flesh bitter and 

 unpalatable for a time. For this reason, the fishermen and wreckers are in the 

 habit of examining the crops of the Doves previous to cooking them. This, 

 however, only takes place about the time of their departure from the Keys, in 

 the beginning of October. They add particles of shell or gravel to their food. 



In Porto Kico, Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1927) found that 

 the bulk of the food of this dove consists of seeds, including many wild 

 legumes, euphorbias, mallows, knotweed and pigweed. Waste grain is also 



