BIRDS OF THE WEST 125 



The dove and his mate are more constant than you and 

 your shadow, for they are chummy in the darkest days, and I 

 think if Lovey should die Dovey would die, too. Don't you? 

 Did you ever see them billing- and cooing? No? Then you don't 

 know what love is. 



Next to loving, doves like weed seed and nine thousand seeds 

 of ragweed or hawkweed or foxtail or pigeon grass are often 

 gathered by a dove in a day. On a single Dakota farm a ton of 

 weed seed goes to furnish a season's food for the doves. Alas, the 

 farmers never pay the dove debt. It is a charge, I fear, a charge 

 of shot, that the dove too often gets, for there is almost a whole 

 mouthful of meat on the little fellow's breast, don't you know? 



It is too bad that they are so trustful. And how ready the 

 mother is to sacrifice her life for the little ones ! If you approach 

 her nest while she has her two white eggs or her fledgelings under 

 her wings, she will tumble to earth, as much as to say, ''Take me! 

 See, I cannot fly!" and if you follow her she will lure you away 

 where you belong, for you have little right to intrude upon her 

 nursery. 



The dove isn't vain, he isn't pretty enough. He is content 

 just to be good. He is so awkward that if the wind blows at all 

 he has all he can do to keep his balance on a fence wire. He is 

 not very smart, either, and is generally at the foot of his class in 

 school, but he is industrious, and he is good and that is something, 

 isn't it? 



In ' ' Locksley Hall ' ' it says : 

 "In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; 

 In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; 

 In the spring a livelier iris comes upon the burnished dove ; 

 In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts ol 



love." 



You see that the dove, with the awakened world, feels the 

 spirit of the springtime, for when he comes there is "calling, 

 cooing, wooing everywhere," and he is always the dove of peace, 

 the bearer of the myrtle. 



