NEST OF DOVES OX THE FENCE OF ASPY ORCHARD 



CHAPTER XIX 



The Mourning Dove: Zenaidum Macroura 



IN DEEP WOOD 



THIS was one of Mr. Black's original forty nests. It was the 

 most beautiful Dove nest of all my experience. Five rods south 

 of the Cat-birds, on the same fence, the Doves had located. They 

 had laid a foundation unusually sure on the flat surface of a top 

 rail, where the rails cross at a corner. Almost every day in field 

 work I wish that colour photography had come into actual, 

 practical, every-day use. This structure and its surroundings 

 made me wish for colour more fervently than usual. 



The fence was very old, in fact such a deep steel-gray as to 

 be almost black, veiled in a delicate mist of lint and well covered 

 with crimply lichens running the entire colour scheme of gray and 

 green. The nest, as you will observe, is not typical. These 

 birds are famous for their careless architecture, a handful of 



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