386 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



swiftness, can readily alight on trees, and move with facility among the 

 branches. 



Their love-notes, which commence in the early spring, are celebrated for 

 their peculiarly sad and touching plaintiveness of sound, though the birds 

 themselves exhibit in their appearance and manners at this time anything 

 but an appearance of grief or mourning, being exceedingly lively and sport- 

 ive in their endearments. These notes are repeated almost continually, 

 in a succession of four or five notes sounding like ah-coo-roo-coo or ah-coo- 



roo-coo-roo. 



This Pigeon feeds on seeds, grain, buckwheat, Indian corn, the berries of 

 various shrubs and plants, and the smaller acorns of the live-oak and other 

 oaks. They are also accused of visiting the gardens and consuming peas. 

 They swallow great quantities of gravel. 



In Pennsylvania they are said to nest as early as the first of. May. They 

 probably have more than one brood in a season, as the nests found at Carlisle 

 about the middle of June were found to contain perfectly fresh eggs. Their 

 nest is a rudely constructed fabric of small twigs laid together in an inartis- 

 tic manner, and lined with a few finer stems and rootlets, and is placed on 

 the horizontal branch of a tree, in a vine or evergreen, or even on the ground. 

 The last was the general position of their nests on the Plains, and occasionally 

 is noticed at the East. Wilson found nests thus placed in Pennsylvania 

 and elsewhere. 



Dr. Coues mentions this bird as an abundant summer resident in Arizona, 

 where it arrives the last week in April and remains into October. The 

 presence of this bird on the dry sandy wastes of that Territory always 

 proved a sure indication of the presence of water, the nature of its food, con- 

 sisting ordinarily of dry hard seeds, rendering an abundant supply of water 

 necessary to its existence. 



Mr. Audubon states that tliese birds breed in Louisiana in April, and 

 sometimes as early as March, and have there two broods. They roost at 

 night on the ground, among the long grasses found growing in abandoned 

 fields ; and occasionally they resort to the dead foliage of trees, and to various 

 kinds of evergreens. Their flesh is said to be remarkably fine, tender and 

 juicy, especially when the birds are fat, and by some is regarded as supe- 

 rior to that of either the Snipe or the Woodcock. 



This Dove can easily be induced to breed in aviaries, even though caught 

 when old, and will have several broods in a season. 



In Southern Illinois they have been observed by Mr. Eidgway to breed in 

 various situations, either on the ground in grain-fields, on the tops of stumps, 

 or the top of a rail fence, as well as in trees and bushes. They nest from 

 the beginning of April to the middle of September. They were also 

 remarkably abundant along the line of the 40th parallel, according to Mr. 

 Eidgway, even in the most desert tracts. 



The eggs of this species measure 1.15 inches in length by .86 in breadth; 



