BOMBAY DUCKS 



DOVES 



DOVES are birds for which I entertain the 

 greatest respect. They remind me of cer- 

 tain urchins who were my companions at a 

 dame's school to which I was sent for the 

 sins of my early youth. Notwithstanding the fact that 

 the aforesaid urchins were the originators of all mischief, 

 the respectable ladies in authority were in the habit of 

 holding them up as models to be copied by the rest of 

 the school. Those boys were not hypocrites, they did 

 not falsely pretend innocence ; there was no need for 

 them to do so. Fortune was always kind to them : she 

 never allowed them to commit the fatal crime of being 

 found out. Thus they passed their early schooldays 

 chuckling at the sweet simplicity of the dames to whose 

 care they had been confided. So it is with doves. With- 

 out conscious efforts, these birds have succeeded in per- 

 suading mankind that they are paragons of virtue. 

 " The whole life and being of the dove," wrote Dr. 



