236 Birds Every Child Should Know 



Panama, in winter, as far north as Ontario in 

 warm weather. Not until nursery duties, 

 which begin early in the spring, are over, late 

 in summer, do they give up their shy, unsocial 

 habits to enjoy the company of a few friends. 

 When they rise on whistling wings from tree- 

 bordered fields, where they have been feeding 

 on seeds and grain, not a gun is fired : no one 

 cares to eat them. 



Only the cuckoo of our common birds builds 

 so flimsy a nest as the dove's adored darling. 

 I am sorry to tell you she is a slack, incompetent 

 housekeeper, but evidently her lover is blind 

 to every fault. What must the expert phoebe 

 think of such a poorly made, untidy cradle, or 

 that bustling, energetic housewife, Jenny Wren, 

 or the tiniest of clever architects, the humming- 

 bird? It is a wonder that the dove's two white 

 eggs do not fall through the rickety, rimless, 

 unlined lattice. How scarred and bruised the 

 naked bodies of the twins must be by the sticks ! 

 Like pigeons, hummingbirds, flickers, and some 

 other feathered parents, doves feed their fledg- 

 lings by pumping partly digested food — "pig- 

 eon's milk" — from their own crops into theirs. 



When they leave the open woodlands to 

 take a dust bath in the road, or to walk about 

 and collect gravel for their interior grinding 

 machines, or to get a drink of water before 

 going to sleep, you may have a good look at 



