274 STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 



thinking the sight of it would frighten away 

 the other pigeons. In this situation, however, 

 his partner did not forsake him, but continued, 

 day after day, walking slowly around the stick 

 from which the dead bird was suspended. The 

 kind-hearted wife of the man who cultivated 

 the farm, at length heard of the afiair, and 

 immediately went to the field, to afford what 

 relief she could to the poor widowed bird. 

 She told me, that, on arriving at the spot, she 

 found the hen much exhausted, and that she 

 had made a circular beaten track around the 

 dead pigeon. It was not until her loved mate 

 was removed, that the mourning widow re- 

 turned to the dove-cote." 



Audubon, in his biography of birds, tells a 

 very interesting tale about a pirate who was 

 reformed by the agency of this bird. I must 

 give the story in the words of the naturalist : 

 **A man who had been a pirate, assured me 

 that several times, while at certain wells dug 

 in the burning shelly sand of a well known 

 key, which must here be nameless, the soft and 

 melancholy cry of the doves awoke in his 

 breast feelings which had long slumbered^ melt- 

 ed his heart to repentance, and caused him to 

 linger at the spot in a state of mind which he 

 caily who compares the wretchedness within 



