THE MOURNING DOVE. 



THE DOVE AND THE STRANGER. 

 Stranger Why mourning there so sad, thou gentle dove? 

 Dove I mourn, unceasing mourn, my vanished love. 

 Stranger What, has thy love then fled, or faithless proved ? 

 Dove Ah no ! the sportsman wounded him I loved ! 

 Stranger Unhappy one ! beware ! that sportman's nigh ! 

 Dove Oh, let him come or else of grief I die. FROM THE RUSSIAN. 



(5 THROUGHOUT the state of 



^ I Illinois and adjacent states 

 QJ I this bird of sad refrain is a 



~~^ permanent resident, though 

 less numerous and of uncertain oc- 

 currence in winter. In the spring of 

 1883, all the specimens seen at Wheat- 

 land, Indiana, had the ends of the 

 toes frozen off, showing that they had 

 braved the almost unprecedented cold 

 of the preceding winter. They have 

 been known to winter as far north as 

 Canada, and in December considerable 

 numbers have been seen about Wind- 

 sor, Ontario. 



The female is a little smaller than 

 the male, and the young are duller 

 and more brownish in color. In many 

 places the Mourning Dove becomes 

 half domesticated, nesting in the trees 

 in the yard, showing but little fear 

 when approached. While the Turtle 

 Dove keeps the deepest woodland 

 solitudes, and rarely seeks the fields 

 and open places, this Dove is as often 

 seen out of the woods as in them, for 

 the greater part of the year at least ; 

 and, though a wary bird, it is not 

 what we can call a shy one. 



The love note of the Mourning 

 Dove, though somewhat monotonous, 

 "sounds particularly soothing and 

 pleasant as we wander through the 

 otherwise almost silent woods, just as 

 they are about to don their leafy 

 vestures, under the gentle influence of 

 an April sun." If the birds be abun- 

 dant, their low and plaintive note, 

 Coo-oo-oo, coo-oo-oo, fills the entire forest 

 with its murmur. Gentle, indeed, as 

 the Dove is thought to be, still this 

 does not hold good in the mating sea- 

 son, for two male birds will often fight 

 with fury for the possession of a 

 female. These encounters, however, 



are only between young or single 

 birds. 



If unmolested, these birds will nest 

 in one certain locality for years. Mrs. 

 Wright says the female is a most 

 prettily shiftless house-wife. "Even 

 though her mate should decline to 

 furnish her with more liberal supply 

 of sticks, she could arrange those she 

 has to better advantage; but she evi- 

 dently lacks that indispensable some- 

 thing, called faculty, which must be 

 inborn. The eggs or bodies of the 

 young show plainly through the rude 

 platform and bid fair to either fall 

 through it or roll out, but they seldom 

 do. Meanwhile she coos regretfully, 

 but does not see her way to bettering 

 things, saying 'I know I'm a poor 

 house-keeper, but it runs in our family;' 

 but when the Dove chooses a flattened 

 out Robin's nest for a platform, the 

 nestlings fare very well'." 



The Dove's food is confined mainly 

 to vegetable matter, peas, beans, 

 lintels, grains, and small seeds of 

 various kinds. They frequent newly 

 sown land and feed upon the seed 

 grain; they search under the oak trees 

 for acorns, and under beech trees for 

 mast, sometimes feeding in the 

 branches; in autumn the stubble field 

 is a favorite feeding spot, where they 

 pick up the scattered grain, and eat 

 the tender heart shoots of the clover, 

 and, Dixon says, they feed upon the 

 growing turnip plants, and in keen 

 weather when the snow lies deep they 

 will make a meal on the turnips them- 

 selves. In their favor, however, is 

 the fact that in the crops of these 

 Doves are often found the seeds of 

 noxious weeds, as the charlock and 

 dock. 



