MEXICAN GROUND DOVE 609 



I heard it I started tq cross a, ten-acre field to search for the bird in some trees 

 on, the far side. , I had. gone but, a few yards when the dove flew from a fvnit 

 tree about three rods away, where he had been the entire time. 



These little doves are not very gregarious in this locality, but that may be 

 because they are present only during the breeding season. Three is the most I 

 have seen in a group and that not often. Usually two are together, probably 

 mates. They are rather qviiet and the call is not heard often. . . . They do not 

 appear to go far from cultivated fields, in fact I have never seen them out on 

 the desert, as is the case with the two larger doves [Mourning and White- 

 winged]. They are most frequently seen hear the river or along irrigating 

 canals, and nest in such locations. . . . 



The nesting season is late, as the earliest nest found: was on July 7 and con- 

 tained one half -grown young bird. This nest was in a. pear tree and placed only 

 two and a half feet from the ground. 



Other nests were found as follows : July 16, two quarter-grown 

 young ; July 17, two half incubated eggs ; September 3, two half -grown 

 young; September 25, two eggs advanced in incubation; October 8, 

 two nearly fresh eggs. This latter set hatched on October 16, but the 

 young were dead two days later." 



Nests ranged from two and a half to twenty-five feet from the gi-ound, with 

 an average of ten feet. In regard to location, two were in cottonwoods, two in 

 pear trees, one in a willow and two in the shrub Baecharis. 



The nests are fairly well made for doves and are composed mostly of rootlets 

 and small twigs. One nest rather more pretentious than usual was made of root- 

 lets, grass stems and blades, leaf stems with veins attached, small tvrigs, horse 

 hair and a few feathers. It was compact and fairly well made, with a decided 

 cup in the center measuring nearly an inch deep, and two inches across from rim 

 to rim. One was an old nest re-vamped, and another was merely a superstructure 

 over an old Abert Towhee's nest. The very late date before mentioned probably 

 pertained to a second brood, as the nest was an old one re-lined, possibly a last 

 year's nest, but more likely an earlier nest of the same year. 



These doves are rather wild when on the nest and will not allow any familiarity. 

 They rarely show any tendency to use the broken-wing tactics, though one did and 

 made a most realistic performance of it. She fell from the nest when I was 

 about eight feet distant and lay with quivering and beating ■nings. As I stepped 

 closer she made ineffectual attempts to fly and fluttered along the ground at my 

 feet just out of reach. She kept this up for about fifty yards before taking 

 to flight. I then went on about my business after ascertaining that the nest con- 

 tained two newly hatched young. Coming back an hour later, I soared her off the 

 nest again and she repeated the performance but in a rather half-hearted way as 

 though she did it from a sense of duty and rather doubted the efficacy of it 

 (Oilman, loe. cit.). 



Near Palo Verde, Imperial County, Leo "Wiley (MS) found three 

 or four pairs of Ground Doves nesting during the summer of 1915. 

 One nest was situated five feet eight inches above the ground in a 

 clump of mistletoe in a mesquite. A nest found by Bendire (1892, 

 pp. 150-152) near Tucson, Arizona, May 30, 1873, measured four and 

 one-half inches in diameter and was "almost perfectly flat." Other 



