37 The Mourning Dove 



a dear old lady in the land would have cared one 

 continental how many of the breed we sportsmen 

 butchered. Then, too, the plaintive sobbing of the 

 love-note appeals to tender hearts, as does the bill- 

 ing and cooing of all doves appeal to the romantic 

 side of those who are doing likewise, or who are 

 thinking of future possibilities in that line. Hence 

 the sportsman who shoots doves must needs be a 

 hard-hearted brute that is, unless he happens to 

 enter the lists as a wooer. Then, I've heard, for 

 of course I have no personal knowledge, that even 

 a manly, straightforward sportsman can be for- 

 given nay, even encouraged, possibly through a 

 Christian desire to wean him from the cruelty of 

 his ways. And wise men, in pity of ignorance 

 perhaps, have even whispered to me that a mess 

 of doves is not necessarily a direct insult, and that 

 one nicely mounted say in a position which 

 would enable it to brood on the side of a hat is 

 no bad scheme. 



One of the deadliest foes of the dove and of 

 many of our common birds is the red squirrel. 

 Any unusual commotion among our feathered 

 friends of garden and orchard is apt to be caused 

 by puss or the red rascal. The squirrel's prey is 

 the eggs, which he prefers when the young are 

 almost ready to leave the shell. He will hold 

 an egg in his paws like a nut, and swiftly nib- 

 ble away the shell until he can draw forth the 



