RINGDOVE FLIGHTS 



language for this delight. We are all Peter Bells 

 when it comes to stating in precise words or printed 

 letters our feelings about such things the primrose 

 is then to us a yellow primrose and no more. 



If there were illusions of spring during the days 

 of sunshine between the sharp nights of January, 

 how much more so on dark February days, with 

 a soft wind instead of a whip, and wild processions 

 of cirrostratus cloud that set skylarks singing. Ring- 

 doves which on and off have cooed through the 

 winter are not yet in full voice ; sometimes the coo 

 will come through the trees so muffled as to remind 

 one of the hoarse note of the stockdove. At its 

 mellow best the ringdove's note is of the highest order 

 of merit. The ringdove's spire, most graceful of 

 love flights, is familiar to most watchers of bird life 

 the dove rises almost straight above the tree on 

 which he has been cooing, to a considerable height 

 perhaps forty or fifty yards from the ground where 

 he hovers for a few seconds and then drops to his 

 perch ; it is not so frequent as the fling of the 

 lapwing, but far from rare. There is, however, a 

 variation of this exercise which has been much less 

 noticed. A ringdove which has been cooing at the 

 edge of a wood or in a park will leave his tree and 

 take a hesitating, slow flight around in the open, 

 twenty yards or so from the ground, giving during 

 each flight a smart clap or two of his wings. The 

 sound is like that of a ring or stock dove startled 

 off its perch at day or night ; but here it has nothing 

 to do with haste and alarm ; it is a love or courting 



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