202 BIRDS 



in a sweetly sad voice. Really he is no more melancholy 

 than the plaintive pewee but, on the contrary, is so happy in 

 his love that his devotion has passed into a proverb. Never- 

 theless, the song sounds more like a dirge than a rapture. 

 While his mate lives, there is no more contented bird. 



Dove lovers are quite self-sufficient. Their larger 

 cousins, the wild pigeons, that once were so abundant, de- 

 pended on friends for much of their happiness and lived in 

 enormous flocks. Now only a few pairs survive in this land 

 of liberty to refute the adage "In union there is strength." 

 Because millions of pigeons slept in favorite roosts many 

 miles in extent, they were aU too easily netted, and it did 

 not take greedy men long to turn the last flock into cash. 

 Happily, doves preserved their race by scattering in 

 couples over a wide area — ^from Panama, in winter, as far 

 north as Ontario in warm weather. Not until nursery 

 duties, which begin early in the spring, are over late in 

 summer, do they give up their shy, unsocial habits to enjoy 

 the company of a few friends. When they rise on whist- 

 ling wings from tree-bordered fields, where they have been 

 feeding on seeds and grain, not a gun is fired; no one cares 

 to eat them. 



Only the cuckoo of our common birds builds so flimsy a 

 nest as the dove's adored darUng. She is a slack, in- 

 competent housekeeper, but evidently her lover is blind to 

 every fault. What must the expert phoebe think of such a 

 poorly made, untidy cradle, or that bustling, energetic 

 housewife, Jenny Wren, or the tiniest of clever archi- 

 tects, the hiunming-bird? It is a wonder that the dove's 

 two white eggs do not fall through the rickety, rimless, un- 

 lined lattice. How scarred and bruised the tender, naked 

 bodies of the twins must be by the sticks! Like pigeons. 



