THE MOURNING DOVE. 167 



ever, they will appear in the newly-reaped wheat-fields in 

 the month of August in very large flocks. They remained 

 in this field for days, gleaning the stray kernels of corn, and 

 perhaps the seeds of the coarser weeds. These birds arrive 

 quite as early as the present date, generally in pairs, and 

 sometimes stray individuals remain all winter. In Northern 

 Ohio they spend the winter in small flocks about the barn- 

 yards and orchards, gleaning and feeding along with the 

 domestic fowl, thus becoming almost domesticated. Hav- 

 ing the small head, peculiar bill, slender neck, short legs, 

 and pointed tail of the Doves, it is a genuine member of 

 the ColumbidcE family, and a near relative of our Pigeon. 

 About a foot long, with fourteen tail feathers, and a naked 

 space around the eyes, its color is a slaty-brown above, 

 bluish on the top of the head and on the back of the neck, a 

 velvety-black spot on the auriculars; front of the neck, 

 breast, and under parts, a delicate, warm light-red; throat, 

 crissum, and ends of the outer tail feathers, white. Here 

 and there about the wings and back is a dark slaty or black 

 feather. The sides of the neck have a beautiful, metallic 

 purple gloss, or iridescence. Female and young, plainer 

 and duller, and slaty on the breast. 



As in Bible lands, the cooing of the Dove is one of the 

 characteristic voices of our advanced spring. In thickets, 

 and especially in orchards, sometimes even in the orna- 

 mented evergreens of the front-yard, some four successive 

 notes, a most mournful cooing among " the saddest sounds 

 in nature," may be heard throughout the day, but especially 

 in the early morning. These notes, however, so strangely 

 in contrast with the universal gladness of spring, are by no 

 means the utterance of grief or woe, but rather of the ten- 

 derest emotions of love and joy. They are the conjugal 

 notes of the male; and such are his attentions and appar- 



