PLATE I 

 TU RTLE-DOVE. Turtur communis 



May 28///, 1898. Mildenhall, Suffolk. The nest in this Plate was built in a 

 small spruce fir in a large plantation. It was only five or six feet from the 

 ground, which was about the average height at which nearly all the Turtle- 

 Doves' nests there were built. I found more than a dozen nests in one end 

 of this plantation, some of them in spruces, some in larches, a few in Scotch 

 firs in the thick part at the top, and a good many in elders, well concealed 

 among the leaves. 



I tried very hard to obtain a photograph of a Turtle-Dove on her nest, 

 but they were so dreadfully shy that I had to give it up at last, though I 

 tried almost every artifice I could think of. The Dove sitting on her nest 

 among the dark foliage of the firs makes a most lovely picture, as the soft 

 gradations of her plumage contrast so pleasingly with the depth of the green 

 background. 



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