272 DOVES. 



'Twere heaven indeed, 

 Through fields of trackless light to soar, 



On Nature's charm to feed, 

 And Nature's own great God adore. 



Their food, in a wild state, consists 

 wholly of grain and seeds, which under- 

 goes, as with all the Pigeon tribe, a kind 

 of softening in their crops before it enters 

 into the vessels of the stomach, and these 

 in the cage must form their sustenance. 

 Broken corn, buckwheat, oats, wheat, rye, 

 and canary and hemp-seeds may be given 

 to them, observing at the same time to 

 allow them plenty of coarse gravel, which 

 they cannot live without, and a suffi- 

 ciency of water, in a flat pan, daily in 

 winter, and during the warm months 

 twice or thrice a day. 



They breed with the greatest ease in 

 confinement, and the hen becomes so tame 

 when sitting, that you may place your 

 hand upon her, and plume her feathers 

 without her evincing the slightest fear; 

 this sociality, however, is common to all 



