82 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



cock-bird of every couple of partridges upon his 

 grounds, supposing that the rivalry of many males 

 interrupted the breed. He used to say, that though 

 he had widowed the same hen several times, yet he 

 found she was still provided with a fresh paramour 

 that did not take her away from her usual haunt *." 



In opposition to this doctrine there is one instance, 

 which has been celebrated from the earliest ages, the 

 turtle-dove being represented as the very emblem of 

 conjugal love and fidelity. The dark or black- 

 coloured turtle-dove, it is said, was employed by the 

 Egyptians as the hieroglyphic of chaste widowhood, 

 it being understood that when one of a pair was 

 killed the other never joined with a second mate. 

 *' They be passing chaste," says Pliny, " and neither 

 male nor female change their mate, but keep together 

 one true unto the other. They live, I say, as coupled 

 by the bond of marriage ; never play they false, one 

 by the other, but keep home still, and never visit the 

 holes of others. They abandon not their own nests, 

 unless they be in a state of single life, or widowhood 

 by death of their fellow. The females are very meek 

 and patient; they will endure and abide their im- 

 perious males, notwithstanding, otherwhiles, they be 

 very churlish unto them, offering them wrong and 

 hard measure, so jealous be they of the hens, and 

 suspicious, though without any cause, for passing 

 chaste and continent by nature they aref." The 

 poets follow naturally in the same opinion, and 

 hence, from Ovid and Dante J down to our own 

 times, we meet with comparisons and allusions 

 thence derived, as if the fact were ascertained beyond 

 question. 



The fact, however, of doves acting in this manner, 

 so far from being correct, may be easily disproved by 



* Nat. Hist, of Selborne, letter 34. 

 t Holland's Piinie, x. 34. J Inferno, Cant. 5. 



