Familiar Studies of Wild Birds 



pick out odd and various places, sometimes 

 choosing the hollow top of a broken tree, some- 

 times a limb ( rarely higher than twenty feet ) , 

 or again a low bush; still again it may build 

 in a brush heap, or on a leaning log, where 

 there is sufficient support. On the log shown 

 in the photograph, a loose piece of bark pro- 

 vided a hold for the scanty framework of the 

 nest. At best, the nest is a slight affair which 

 does not hold together much longer than is 

 necessary. The two white eggs, producing 

 male and female, are laid one on the second 

 dajr following the first, and hatch in fourteen 

 days. Both birds take turns at incubating, 

 the female sitting at night, the male in the 

 daytime. The young thrust their bills, often 

 both at a time, into that of the parent, which 

 feeds them by regurgitating the food con- 

 tained in its crop. 



Because of its shyness, the mourninsr dove 

 is very difficult to photograph. It generally 



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