2IO THE TURTLE DOVE 



Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; the flowers 

 appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds is come, and 

 the voice of the Turtle is heard in our land.' ^ Less sweetly, but 

 to the same effect, sings a poet of the last century : 



The cuckoo calls aloud his wand'ring love, 

 The Turtle's moan is heard in ev'ry grove ; 

 The pastures change, the warbling linnets sing. 

 Prepare to welcome in the gaudy spring ! 



Philips. 



There is no melody in the song of the Turtle, as it consists of a 

 single note, a soft, sweet, agitated murmur, continued without 

 pause for a long time, called a ' moan ' - both by Latin and English 

 poets, not from its being suggestive of pain, but because there is 

 no other word which describes it so nearly. I have already 

 had occasion to remark how unsatisfactory are most of the at- 

 tempts which have been made to represent the songs of birds by 

 combinations of letters, but the Latin name of the Turtle-dove, 

 Turtur, is a notable exception. Pronounced ' tur-r-r tur-r-r', 

 it will instantly recall the note to any one who has once heard it. 

 The French name also, Tourterelle, can belong to this bird alone. 



The Turtle Dove is found in all the southern countries of Europe, 

 in Palestine, and many other parts of Asia, including the islands 

 south of China. In England it is a visitor in the southern and 

 midland counties only, arriving in spring and remaining with us 

 until the end of September. Its favourite places of resort are 

 groves, belts of trees, and tall hedgerows in cultivated districts. 

 Here it builds its unsubstantial nest of a few sticks, and lays two 

 eggs. Its food consists of seeds of various kinds, and it has the 

 discredit of resorting to fields of green wheat for the sake of feed- 

 ing on the milky grain. I am doubtful whether this charge can be 

 sustained. Often enough when walking through a cornfield one 

 may see two or three Turtle Doves rise suddenly from the thick 

 corn with a rustle and low cry of alarm, rapidly dart away in the 

 direction of the nearest grove, disappearing in the shade, all but a 

 white segment of a circle, formed by the tips of their tail-feathers ; 

 but on examining the spot from which they rose, I have been 

 unable to detect any ears of corn rifled of their contents, though 

 the ground was thickly matted with weeds, which might have 

 furnished them food. I am informed by a young friend that he 

 has often shot them while in the act of rising from such situations 

 and has invariably found their crops distended with the green seed- 

 vessels of a weed common in cornfields, the corn-spurrey [Spergula 

 arvensis). This being the case, the Turtle Dove is more a friend 

 than an enemy to the farmer, even if it sometimes regales on ripe 



^ Cant. ii. ii, 12. 



2 'Nee gemere aeria cessabit Turtur ab ulmo.' — Virgil. 

 Nor shall from loftv elm the Turtle cease to moan. 



