on an Outdoor Aviary on the Italian Riviera. 189


lessly all round us; and the Senegal Doves are almost as tame,

their pretty soft Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo sounding from the orange

and magnolia trees.


Now I relate this experience with these Doves to show to

our members the fact that it is quite possible to domesticate

various species, especially if one has an aviary given up to them

into which they can go in and out to obtain their food ; as such

a plan would be more likely to keep them nearer home. For

here in Italy, one is much more handicapped ; the garden is not

a very large one, and is surrounded by public paths, and on one

side the high road is quite close by.


I see no reason why Crested Pigeons and Bronzewings, etc.

should not also remain : of course I am speaking of birds bred

on the spot where they are turned out. But I particularly

recommend the Diamond Doves, so long as some others are

enclosed in an aviary near by: they seem to have a homing

instinct, and are, with their arrow-like flight, so beautiful on the

wing.


A few mornings ago, a little cock Diamond Dove was

cooing in an orange tree close to me, on a level with my face, as

I was standing on an upper terrace, above the wall of which

grow the orange trees from below ; when suddenly he shot out

and went soaring up and away over the sea, coming down again

with outspread wings, rather after the manner of a Wood -

Pigeon. I have seen the Senegal Doves do the same; and

indeed the Barbary Doves act likewise, when courting their

wives.


In these wonderful days of early spring in Italy I am

awakened in the sunny mornings by the voice of a Diamond

Dove, as he sits cooing on the top of a vine pergola, beneath

my bedroom window.


I reared up two by hand last May (1904) for my wife, and

the little male bird is most devoted to her. He is constantly out

of his cage in her sitting-room, and if he is perching on the

curtain-rod, and she holds out her hand and says ‘Come along,

Seed-Pearl,’ down he conies like an arrow to sit on her finger

and coo. At other times, when she is writing letters, he is quite

de trop, for he insists on running all over the sheet of paper, and



