MOURNING DOVE 



Called also: Carolina Dove 



Y\p NOT waste any sympathy on this Jn- 

 -■-^ cessant love-maker that slowly sings 

 coO'O-o, ah-coo-o-o-ooo-o-o-ooo-o-o, in a sweetly 

 sad voice. Really he is no more melan- 

 choly than the plaintive pewee but, on the 

 contrary, is so happy in his love that his de- 

 votion has passed into a proverb. Neverthe- 

 less, the song he sings to his ''turtle dove" 

 sounds more like a dirge than a rapture. While 

 she lives, there is no more contented bird in the 

 woods. 



Dove lovers are quite self-sufficient. Their 

 larger cousins, the wild pigeons, that once were 

 so abundant, depended on friends for much of 

 their happiness and lived in enormous flocks. 

 Now only a few pairs survive in this land of 

 liberty to refute the adage "In union there is 

 strength." Because millions of pigeons slept 

 in favourite roosts many miles in extent, they 

 were all too easily netted, and it did not take 

 greedy men long to turn the last flock into cash. 

 Happily, doves preserved their race by scat- 

 tering in couples over a wide area — from 



235 



