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 circumstances 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 doves change 

 their mates. The fact, moreover, that these birds are 

 easily enticed from their own dovecots to others, 

 and thus become lost to 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 ; for if 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 constancy, he found 

 the females of those which were confined 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 instances 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). 



