140 LIFE HISTORIES OP NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



of this fact, and, if not familiar with the country, they shape their course 

 after the line of travel of these Doves, which is always a direct and straight 

 route to the objective point. 



The mating season begins early in March in the southern portions of 

 their range, and later northward. Fresh eggs have been found by Mr. George 

 E. Beyer, near New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 30; and I have taken per- 

 fectly fresh specimens as late as September 14, and might probably have 

 found them still later had I looked for them at my camp on Rillitto Creek, 

 near Tucson, Arizona. 



Their peculiar love notes are well known to most observers, and can be 

 frequently heard in the early spring wherever these birds are found, being 

 a sound of three syllables in the beginning, like "coo, c66, r65," and ending 

 with four and five, with slight variations like "M66, 6a, 665, 666, 665." These 

 notes are guttural and difficult to describe exactly. It is a low, mournful, 

 but nevertheless far-penetrating note, though the actions of the male while 

 uttering them seem cheerful and lively enough. He pays devoted court to his 

 mate at all times, and I am inclined to the belief that many remain paired 

 throughout the year, as single pairs may be seen in winter as well as summer. 



The nesting season begins about the middle of March in Florida and other 

 Southern States, and from three to four weeks later in the more northern por- 

 tions of its range. 



The nesting sites of this species are exceedingly variable. Usually the 

 slender and frail platform of twigs, which answers the purpose of a nest, 

 is placed on some flat spreading limb of a tree, at a height of from 10 to 20 

 feet from the ground, no especial preference being shown for any partic- 

 ular kind, unless perhaps, the evergreens, such as small cedars, junipers, and 

 pines. Various sorts of bushes are also used; in fact, nests may be found at a 

 height of only a few inches from the ground and again 50 and more feet 

 up. In the Carolinas, Dr. Elliott Coues states, in his "Birds of the Northwest," 

 that they nest chiefly on the ground. Personally I have more than once found 

 the eggs of this species lying on .the bare ground under the shelter of some 

 little bush, and usually close to a creek, both in Washington and Idaho, but the 

 majority of these birds nested there in willow thickets. At Fort Ouster, Mon- 

 tana, I found their nests on flat sticks of cordwood in woodpiles ; and in 

 Arizona they often lay on a cottonwood stump. I found a nest of the Mourn- 

 ing Dove on top of "an abandoned and broken down Magpie's nest, near Camp 

 Harney, Oregon; in fact, they use all sorts of strange sites, flat tops of bowl- 

 ders, ledges of cliffs, old nests of other species on top of which a slight 

 platform of sticks is built, etc. In the more open prairie regions of the 

 Western States they probably breed as frequently on the ground as above it, 

 but in Arizona, although I noticed many of their nests, none were found on the 

 ground, no doubt due to the many reptiles inhabiting that country. Here they 

 usually selected the thick shrubbery found along water courses, and again, in 

 some localities they were quite partial to the thorny mesquite and catsclaw 

 bushes, and even to the ever-present eholla cactus. 



