4 BOMBAY DUCKS 
Masius, “is a pleasing idyl. They are chaste, gentle, 
unsuspecting, full of tender affection, and deserve above 
all others the epithet of ‘the pious birds.” Without 
guile, like doves, it is said in the Bible. Without guile 
and free from anger, suffering all, even death, and not 
once uttering a cry of pain, what other animal may 
be compared to them? 
“The dove alone, according to the ancients, is desti- 
tute of gall; and in a hundred popular rhymes and 
love-songs, as well as in the metaphors of the medieval 
wandering preachers, the praise of her innocence re- 
sounds.” 
This may be taken as a fair statement of popular 
opinion of the dove. Some people go further. Thus 
dear old Eliza Cook says: “Linnets teach us how 
to love, and ring-doves how to pray.” Now I do not 
wish to poke fun at that estimable and well-meaning 
lady, but I am constrained to say that it is unfortunate 
that she did not study the ways of the dove a little 
before penning the above line. Had she but invested 
eighteenpence in one of the cooing community, she 
might have said of them: “They teach us how to 
swear.” But then, of course, the question would arise, 
do men need to be taught that accomplishment? I am 
inclined to think that swearers, like poets, are born, not 
made. 
How delightful is the idea that doves are “ free from 
anger!” I once knew a dove which was in a rage for a 
whole week because it had been transferred from one 
cage to another. It did not approve of the style of 
architecture of its new habitation, so sat, for the space 
