148 HABITS OF BIRDS. 
The fact, however, of doves acting in this man- 
ner, so far from being correct, may be easily dis- 
proved by any one who will take the trouble, as 
well as by circumstanees mentioned by the very 
writers just quoted. Aristotle, indeed, though he 
hints in one place his belief in the common opinion, 
mentions in another that he had known deves change 
their mates. The fact, moreover, that these birds are 
easily enticed from their own dovecots to others, 
and thus become lost te their owners, is but too 
well known to everybody who has ever kept them. 
“Some,” says Pliny, ‘use means to keep pigeons 
in their dovehouse (for otherwise they be birds 
that love to be ranging and wandering abroad), 
namely, by slitting and cutting the joints of their 
wings with some thin sharp piece of gold ; forif you 
do not so, their wounds will fester and be dangerous. 
And in very troth, these birds be soon seduced and 
trained away from their own homes; and they have 
a cast with them to flatter and entice one another: 
they take a great delight to inveigle others, and to 
steal away some pigeons from their own flocks, and 
evermore to come home better accompanied than 
they went forth.” Now all this is evidently in di- 
rect contradiction to what we have quoted from the 
preceding page of the same work. M. Ray also in- 
formed Buffon, that notwithstanding the reputation 
of the turtle-dove for conjugal constaney, he found 
the females of those which were eonfined in vole- 
ries living almost promiscuously with the males. 
Nay, M. Ray asserts that he has observed the wild 
turtle-doves living in the same manner on the same 
tree. ‘The common opinion, therefore, appears from 
these circumstances to be manifestly erroneous. 
We meet, however, with instanees among other 
birds of affectionate conjugality well worthy of be- 
ing recorded; and we shall give one example of 
this kind, as described by Bingley, that occurred in 
a pair of the Guinea parrot (Psittacus pullarius\ 
