124 THE BIRDS OF CALCUTTA. 



with another Dove very familiar in Calcutta, the domestic 

 fawn-coloured or white Dove, which is so well-known as a 

 cage-bird, although its real origin and home seem to be 

 still doubtful. The spotted Dove, however, has few rivals 

 among the Turtle-doves in the matter of plumage, being 

 most elegantly spotted with pinkish fawn on a drab 

 ground, and boasting a black tippet spotted with white as 

 a neck ornament. As is usual with Doves, the male and 

 female are equally pretty, but the young birds have no 

 tippet-marking at first, and only a dingy indication of the 

 pretty speckling on the back, which will appear later. 

 The eggs whence the twin offspring are disclosed are white, 

 as in all Doves, and deposited on a flimsy collection of 

 twigs, placed, doubtless, in some secure retreat ; foi. in 

 spite of the numbers of doves to be seen about suitable 

 compounds, their nests are not by any means common ob- 

 jects, and, considering the proverbial helplessness of "two 

 strengthless doves," it is really very creditable to the 

 pretty pairs that they bring off so many young. Love, 

 indeed, supplies much to these weak creatures, giving them 

 courage not only to fight each other with their feeble bills 

 and unarmed wings, but even to attack the blackguard 

 crow, even if not, as Shakespeare says, to " peck the 

 estridge." They are the best of parents, too ; if the wild 

 cock dove is like his tame relative, he is a most admirable 

 husband and father, taking his fair share of the sitting, 

 i.e., most of the day time, and feeding his young just as 

 assiduously as their mother does ; first with the " pigeon's 

 milk " secreted in the crop, and afterwards with softened 

 grain and other vegetable food. 



