THE MOURNING DOVE 



the camera, then slipped sixty feet away to await her return. 

 She came close but would not enter the nest with the camera 

 there. When I waited until I was afraid for the young I was 

 forced to remove it. After she had brooded a long time, I 

 tried again with as great caution as it was possible for me to 

 use; again she flew before I could see her. We made an all-day 

 business of it, also several days following were spent in futile 

 attempts, for the bird grew wilder as the young grew older, while 

 a vicious mare with a young colt chased me every time she saw 

 me, so that the first exposure was all I had of the river Dove. 

 I made several of the young to complete the series, before they 

 left the nest. 



The other nest was a few rods away, in the Aspy orchard. 

 In beating down apples, boys had used a piece of old apple-tree 

 trunk. It had lodged flat on a branch, hollow side up, one end 

 firmly wedged between two green "suckers," the other against a 

 small limb, where it had held for a season. Here the Doves 

 had made an unusually ramshackle nest, upon which the gentle 

 and modest-appearing hen was brooding. 



An interesting time that bird gave me, not another such in a 

 lifetime of work afield. When I began with her she showed symp- 

 toms of moving at thirty feet so I stopped right there to make the 

 first exposure. Wlien I tried walking the camera toward her, she 

 went like the proverbial "flash," and would not return with me 

 there, so I took down the camera and went away. The next time 

 I tried I got a few feet closer before 'she made a forward impulse 

 which warned me to stop. I made another exposure and again 

 cautiously tried moving the camera forward. I knew the ground 

 as I had gone close and pictured the eggs the first time she left, 

 but there was no approach by that method. The bird would 

 not endure having the strange-looking object slowly draw near 

 her, so the camera would have to be carried away. An hour 



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