THE MOURNING DOVE 



to look characteristic, but when I thought of it, they would appear 

 that way in any event, while we neither could cause nor prevent 

 it. In my experience a Dove is always a Dove. If I should see 

 one involved in an affair of honour with any other bird or pulling 

 feathers from his mate I should think he had eaten wild parsnip- 

 seed and gone crazy. 



As we worked around these nestlings from the deep cool 

 forest came continuously the mournful "A'gh, coo, coo, coo," 

 of the old Doves. No wonder early ornithologists thought 

 Mourning Doves a suitable name for them. The same idea has 

 become so ingrained with us that it is a protection to them. 

 Even careless children respect the supposed grief of Doves, as 

 they would that of humans. 



On detailed investigation there are no happier birds. They 

 emerge in pairs, grow up close as they can keep together all day 

 and crowd tight against each other at night. With them there is 

 no eager unrest and search for a mate. Excepting while the female 

 broods, a circle of three yards would include both of them three- 

 fourths of the time, even in flight. Often on wing I have seen a 

 male Dove forge ahead too far and turning describe a circle 

 around his mate and come up closer to her. They are of such 

 quiet disposition and inconspicuous colouring that they escape 

 many of the dangers which brilliant, self-assertive birds call upon 

 themselves. 



Always there is an abundance of the seed they love best to be 

 had for the eating, their crops eternally are stuffed to gluttony; 

 always it is easy to find dust for bathing. Always they are to- 

 gether, tender, loving, and in reality cooing in an ecstasy of su- 

 preme content about it all. Mourning Doves, indeed! One 

 might well covet such mourning as theirs. 



During the year following the publication of this book, in 

 these same locations I had the happiness of reproducing two 



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