The Nesting of the Dzvarf Ground Dove. 257


THE NESTING OF THE DWARF GROUND DOVE.


Chamcepelia griseola.


By W. F. Teschemaker.


I recently received an urgent reminder from our excellent

Hon. Correspondence Secretary that a promise I made some

months since to write something for the Magazine had never

been fulfilled. I regret that my choice of subjects is limited, as

I have had no luck with my birds since 1906. The united efforts

of all the inmates of my aviaries this season have only produced

four young Magpie Mannikins, one Yellow-rumped Serin, one

Cirl Bunting and two Ground Doves. As the Foreign Bird Club

is now trying to encourage the breeding of British species,

whereas the Avicultural Society does not (officially at all events)

appear to take much interest in the latter, I am sending some

account of the nesting of the Cirl Bunting to the F.B.C. and I

will make good the promise, previously alluded to, by saying

something about my Dwarf Doves.


The latter were imported by our member Mr. E. W. Harper

last summer and came into my possession in the autumn. My

aviaries were so infested by cats a few years since that I found it

necessary to get rid of all Doves of any species owing to their

great nervousness, but by a system of wire-netting entangle¬

ments, such as was not attempted at Mafeking, I am now better

able to repel the attacks of the enemy, so I have recently

acquired one or two species of small Doves. Doves, however,

are not favourites of mine and have never interested me. They

quite lack the three characteristics which I think we admire

most in birds, namely, song, beauty of plumage and vivacity.


The stupidity of the Cohtmbidce is so colossal that I have

often wondered how they have survived at all in the keen struggle

for existence. As a counterpoise to their stupidity, however,

they have great vitality, great fecundity, long life and great

power of flight. With the possible exception of the Diamond

and Cape Doves hardly any I think are attractive from an

artistic point of view, and the weird notes of many of the

foreign doves can only be described as ludicrous. A pair of

Woodpigeons nest in the elm-trees in my garden every }^ear and



