OKLAHOMA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 61 



different evidences of maturity at aljout the same ages as with 

 D. except with cooing which appeared at about 7 months ; this 

 of course, was dependent on the season as well as the develop- 

 ment of the bird. 



If it takes a mourning dove five or six months to mature, 

 it is evident that the "young of early spring broods" will not be 

 nesting by September of the same year as is suggested by Taylor 

 (1916). 



FOOD OF MOURNING DOVES ~%i^ 



In Nature 



The mourning dove lives principally upon the seeds of weeds,, 

 the rest of their food being grain. Beal (1904) says, " the dove 

 does not eat insects or other animal food so far as known. The 

 few traces of insects found in the stomachs are believed to be the 

 remains of weevils contained in seeds which the birds had eaten." 

 The young are fed upon "pigeon milk" which is regurgitated from 

 the parents' crops. Apparently, however, as the young are nearly- 

 ready to leave the nest, whole seeds from a portion of the diet. 

 Judd (1910) reports that of five squabs "examined in the lab- 

 oratory of the Biological survey, 30 per cent of their food was 

 composed of seeds, while the remaining 70 per cent consisted of 

 irregular endosperm fragments of the above seeds from 0.5 to 

 3 mm. in diameter, probably the regurgitated matter coninionl}' 

 known as "pigeon's milk". Townsend (1906) tells of a nestling 

 mourning dove about 12 days old, that had only 2 per cent of 

 pigeon milk in its crop, the bulk of the food being 1,200 weed 

 seeds. 



As to the food of the adults, Beal (1904) reports after the 

 examination of 237 stomachs, that weed seeds "constituce 64 per 

 cent of the annual food supply and show very little variation dur- 

 ing any month. Wheat, oats, rye, corn, barley, and buckwheat 

 were found in 150 of the stomachs, and constituted 32 per cent 

 of the total food. However, three-fourths of this amount was 

 waste grain picked up in the fields after the harvesting was over." 



As to the numbers of weed seeds taken at a single meal, 

 Eaten (1909) says: "I have taken several thousand seeds of the 

 foxtail or pigeon grass from the crop of a single dove which was 

 shot from a flock of thirty that were coming from an oats field 

 in Ontario County. By measurement it was evident that this 

 company of doves had just picked up about two quarts of weed 



