THE MOURNING DOVE 12S 



We had plenty of pigeons in our barn and I was familiar 

 with pigeons' nests and eggs. I remember well that it 

 dawned on my mind that this dove" must be a pigeon, be- 

 cause the nest and the eggs looked so much like those of 

 a pigeon. Mother told me that they were of the same 

 family and that there was another member of this family 

 that used to be very plentiful but was now growing scarce, 

 at least in our Iowa woods. On the way home, if my 

 memory serves me right, she showed me a flock of thir- 

 teen of these wild pigeons. That was the only flock of 

 wild pigeons I ever remember seeing, tho I occasionally 

 saw a pair or a single bird after that. But I shall never 

 forget the wonderful stories father and mother used to 

 tell me of the wild pigeons and their roosts in the Ozark 

 regions in Missouri when they were first married. These 

 pigeons used to pass over their house in such flocks as at 

 times to obscure the sun. In the morning until eight or 

 nine o'clock they would fly, flock after flock, from their 

 roosts to the fields and meadows, and about an hour be- 

 fore sundown they would begin to return to the roosting 

 place. So low did they fly and in such dense flocks that 

 one could hardly throw a stone into the flock without bring- 

 ing down a bird. 



The roost was a large oak grove only a short distance 

 from home. There the birds roosted in untold thousands 

 alighting on the branches so thickly that they would often 

 break them down. Father said that in the roost at night 

 the cooing of pigeons and the flapping of the wings of 

 birds that were coming in late made a noise so great that 

 even the report of a gun was not noticed by the pigeons. 

 People would go into this roost and kill them by the 

 sackful with guns, clubs, rocks, nets, and in other ways. 



