The Mourning Dove 239 



like that in the illustration, at a height of five to twenty feet 

 from the ground. One that I observed at Somerleaze was 

 built on an outspreading limb of a young elm, so low that I 

 could easily look into it. Sometimes the nest is built in other 

 places, they having been found on the ground, stumps, rocks 

 and fence rails. The nest, like that of the cuckoo, is built of 

 a few sticks and straws and is a very shabby affair. The 

 wonder is that the eggs and the young of the birds remain 

 upon it. Two pure white eggs constitute a clutch. Incuba- 

 tion lasts about two weeks and both the male and female take 

 part in it. The young grow very rapidly and leave the nest 

 early. Both parents are attentive to their young, even after 

 they have left the nest. The nestlings are fed upon regurgi- 

 tated food. 



Baskett in his Story of the Birds says, "The pigeon group 

 is very peculiar, even among this kind of birds, in that the 

 young inserts its beak into that of the parent and finds there 

 at first not half-digested food, but a curdlike secretion, or, 

 rather more accurately, the thickened and 'peeled up' lining 

 of the parent's crop. Until the young are about nine days old 

 this occurs in both parents, as an unexplained physiological 

 result of incubation. Toward the last of this period the curd 

 is mixed largely with the food of the parent, and gradually 

 ceases to form till the youngster finds for his dinner only 

 bread without cheese." 



The food of the adult bird consists of different kinds of 

 grain, weed seeds, beechnuts, small acorns, worms and insects. 

 Professor King took four thousand and sixteen seeds of pigeon 

 grass from the stomach of a single bird, while from another 

 seven thousand five hundred seeds of oxalis were taken. They 

 like a larger variety of weed seed than any other bird, and 

 feed on the seeds of the rag weed, pigeon grass, smart weed 

 bind weed and several other weeds. They are par excellence 

 weed seed destroyers. After the nesting season is over they 

 gather in flocks of varying size and frequent grain and corn 

 fields. During the day they visit the nearest supply of fine 

 gravel, which they eat in large quantities as an aid to diges- 

 tion. At this time it is interesting to watch them. Their 

 color is so much like that of the dust of the roadway that one 



