438 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Nicholson noted that the young are brooded by one or the other 

 parent, or shaded from the hot sun, until they are well grown and 

 feathered. When somewhat advanced in age they frequently come 

 out from under the brooding parent to sun themselves and stretch 

 their legs and wings. 



Feeding begins within two hours after hatching; Nicholson saw a 

 young bird break the shell and watched it until it was fed. The 

 young are fed entirely on regurgitated food, which is given by both 

 parents. Nicholson says it is a. common act for a ground dove to 

 feed both young simultaneously and that the young are more often fed 

 this way than singly. He has succeeded in photographing the act. 



Plumages. — The nestling ground dove is scantily clothed with long, 

 stringy, hairlike down of a dull gray color. In the juvenal plumage 

 the young bird is much like the adult, but browner with duller mark- 

 ings above and fewer or none below; the upper parts vary in color 

 from "snuff brown" to "cinnamon-brown," brightest on the wing 

 and tail coverts, with conspicuous black spots in the wing coverts; 

 the underparts vary from " buffy brown " to " wood brown." I have 

 been unable to trace the subsequent molts. 



Food. — Doctor Pearson (1920) says: 



The ground dove's food consists largely of small seeds which it gathers in the 

 garden, on the lawn, by the roadside, in the field, and other places where 

 weeds or grasses are found. Naturally many insects are also picked up in their 

 travels, particularly in the spring and summer. Small wild berries are also 

 consumed. So far as known they never adversely affect the interests of man- 

 kind, even in the slightest degree, and wherever found they are protected by 

 statute and by the still stronger law of public sentiment. 



Behavior. — When disturbed the ground dove rises on whistling 

 wings; its flight is low and direct, but not protracted to any great 

 distance; it generally amounts to only a short dash into the nearest 

 cover. It is very much attached to certain restricted localities, in 

 which it may be regularly found, and to which it soon returns after 

 being disturbed. It is well named, for it is decidedly terrestrial in 

 its habits, spending most of its time on the ground, where it walks 

 quickly, with a pretty nodding motion of its head and with an 

 elevated tail. It is, however, often seen perched on a fence, the 

 branch of a tree, or the roof of a building. 



Nicholson tells me that the incubating or brooding male assumes 

 a fighting attitude when the nest is approached, with wings raised 

 high above his back and uttering an angry, nasal, rasping note. One 

 allowed himself to be lifted from the nest, to which he clung, making 

 angry notes and striking with repeated heavy downward strokes 

 of the wings, but never striking with the bill. 



Voice. — The soft, cooing notes of the ground dove are the char- 

 acteristic sounds that one hears in its Florida haunts ; their mourn- 



