180 NESTING AND EEAEING. [CHAP. v. 



sion being the boldest, the strongest, and the most 

 beautiful. Most of the Columbida3 are strong flyers ; 

 but frequently when allusion is made to this power, it 

 is not our bird which is called ' the Dove.' Shak- 

 speare, our constant resource in the poetry of natural 

 history, makes Juliet say, 



' Love's heralds should be thoughts : 

 Therefore do nimble-pinioned Doves draw Love' 



meaning the Carrier Pigeon ; which is also beautifully 

 alluded to in Moore's sacred melody of ' The Dove let 

 loose in Eastern skies.' 



" The Laughing Dove builds a rather careless plan 

 of a nest. In conformity with Mr. Rennie's description 

 in the ' Architecture of Birds,' it is a platform-builder : 

 both male and female assist in the work. The birds 

 sit alternately and assiduously. The cooing of the 

 bird which is not sitting is incessant, and the attention 

 paid to the one on the eggs most exemplary and cre- 

 ditable to their family character. After the chick is 

 hatched, a white secretion is supplied, from the crop 

 of both male and female, to the young; its bill is 

 then quite soft, and is thrust down the throat of the 

 parent birds for nutriment; which action, like most 

 functions of necessity, is a pleasure to the giver as well 

 as to the receiver. This lactiferous secretion has led to 

 the existence of the once problematical notion respect- 

 ing ' Pigeons' milk.' As the bird grows and begins to 

 peck, the parents put him on his own resources ; the se- 

 cretion grows less ; the young bird sheds the outside 

 skinny covering of his soft or sucking bill ; it gradually 

 hardens so that he can peck gravel and corn ; and his 

 parents turn him adrift to form other friendships for 

 himself, as they then have done with him." 



