240 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



gets close to them before seeing them. They do not seem to 

 be frightened, but will fly up and a little ahead to keep out of 

 the way, and this they will do for some distance, and then 

 divide and fly out in a circle and return to where they first 

 started. If I were going to give the mourning dove another 

 name, I would call it the "Road Flyer." 



The last week of July and the first two weeks of August, 

 1882, I spent in the Rocky Mountains, and traveled over seven 

 different ranges in a two-horse wagon with a camping outfit. 

 The outing was a most pleasant and instructive one. As we 

 ascended the mountains the vegetation, except the pretty Al- 

 pine flowers, became exceedingly scanty, and of quadrupeds, 

 birds and insects, scarcely one could be seen. Excepting one 

 grouse and jay the only birds we saw were mourning doves, 

 and true to their habit of road flying, we saw them in small 

 flocks in the highway before us. The last flock of them that 

 we saw was the day before we reached the snow limit. That 

 night we camped on a beautiful plateau and pitched our tent 

 on a plat of wild strawberries from which we picked ripe fruit. 

 The next morning the water in our camping utensils was cov- 

 ered with ice. That day I sat beside the ever-existing snow 

 and made a snowball with my right hand and gathered Alpine 

 flowers with my left. 



Of the dove we have a very early account, for it is re- 

 corded in Genesis that Noah "sent forth a dove from him to 

 see if the waters were abated from the face of the ground. 

 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she re- 

 turned unto him in the ark. And again he sent forth the dove 

 out of the ark. And the dove came unto him in the evening, 

 and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf, plucked off." It has 

 been well said that the dove is the bird of gentleness, quiet, 

 singing in low, calm notes in the morning and eveningtide. It 

 is the bird of innocence. It avoids every scene and place where 

 harm is possible ; it disturbs no one ; brings loss or hurt to no 

 one ; costs no one anything. It lives in desert places and leafy 

 shades in seclusion, giving everyone who sees it the idea of 

 simple unobtrusive innocence that pleases by its gentleness. It 

 is the bird of melancholy. There is a vague sadness in its low 

 note "Coo-o-o, ah-coo-o-o, o-o." The spirit of gentleness, 



