NEST OF DOVES ON THE FENCE OF ASPY ORCHARD 



CHAPTER XIII 



The Mourning Dove: Zenaidura 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 color photography had come into actual, prac- 

 tical, every-day use. This structure and its surroundings made 

 me wish for color 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 whole color scheme of gray and 

 green. The nest, as you will observe, is not a typical Dove's nest. 

 These birds are famous for their careless architecture, a handful 



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