2 92 FEATHERED FRIENDS, 



that before long I might have the pleasure of seeing 

 them begin to build a nest; but alas! I had some 

 Californian Quail in the same enclosure, very delightful 

 creatures and perhaps the tamest birds I ever had, but 

 at the same time the most tyrannical and wicked, beat- 

 ing even the White-eared Conures in this respect, and 

 they were bad enough! 



I did not, at the time, suspect the Quail of hostile 

 intentions towards my handsome Green-winged Doves, 

 or I should certainly have taken them away, but one 

 morning when I went to feed the birds I saw the cock 

 Pigeon perched high up on a branch, and looking very 

 frightened and miserable, as he had reason to do, too, 

 for he had evidently been in the wars and had lost, 

 or been stripped of pretty well half his feathers. The 

 hen Pigeon was not to be seen anywhere about, but 

 the place was strewn with feathers, which come out of 

 these birds almost at the slightest handling. With a 

 foreboding of evil I entered the aviary, and on searching 

 about presently found the poor hen Dove in a corner 

 dead and greatly disfigured. 



My first idea was that a rat had effected an entrance 

 and done the wicked deed : but no, for even as I held 

 the scarcely cold body of the Pigeon in my hand the 

 Quail flew at it, and by the fierce " war-whoop" the 

 cock raised as I drove them away I knew that my 

 "Indian Chief" and his fiery-tempered " Squaw" had 

 been the perpetrators of the deed. Why, it is impos- 



