269 



CHAPTER II. 



DOVES. Columbce. 



The most common, and the most prized 

 variety of the Pigeon race, is the Ring, or 

 as it is most frequently styled, the Turtle- 

 dove. Of all the feathered tribe, none are 

 regarded like them with such holy reve- 

 rence, from the circumstance of one of the 

 species having been the messenger who 

 returned to the Ark, bearing in his bill 

 the token of a subsidence of the waters; 

 and of his being symbolical of the pre- 

 sence of the MOST HIGH. This feeling is 

 carried to such an extent among the far- 

 mers of the interior of Pennsylvania, that 

 the slaughter of the common American 

 wild species, the Carolina Pigeon, (Co- 

 lumba Carolinensis^) whose flesh, by the 

 by, is scarcely inferior to that of the Par- 

 tridge, is esteemed a sacrilegious thing, 

 23* 



