The Western Mourning Dove 



Taken in the Ojai 



In late summer and early autumn the Doves begin to gather into 

 groups, or small flocks, although they cannot, like the Pigeons, be char- 

 acterized as "highly gregarious." Food, taken chiefly from the ground, 

 consists, in part, of fallen grains, but always largely, and often exclusively, 



of weed seeds. The 

 industry and capacity 

 of these birds as weed- 

 seed destroyers is 

 enormous. Beal 

 reports one stomach 

 which contained 6400 

 seeds of the trouble- 

 some foxtail (ChcB- 

 tochloa), another 7500 

 seeds of the yellow 

 wood sorrel, and 

 another 9200 seeds of 

 mixed varieties, but 

 mostly noxious weeds. 

 These were single 

 meals, and the bird 

 requires several such 

 in the day. Suppose 

 each bird consumed 

 three cubic inches, 

 a very modest allow- 

 ance, of weed-seed per 

 diem. That would 

 make half a bushel of weed-seed per annum, enough to seed ten acres of 

 land with any one of a dozen varieties of plant pests. Judged by this 

 standard, and it is a fair one, the Mourning Dove bulks large as an 

 economic factor in the development of California. And for pay, this zeal- 

 ous "hired man" asks only exemption, for the trifling amount of standing 

 grain (chiefly wheat) occasionally taken is agreed by experts to be a prac- 

 tically negligible factor, not over two per cent of the bird's total fare. 



The question whether the Mourning Dove is or is not a "game-bird" 

 is one which I cannot bring myself to discuss dispassionately. Our laws, 

 reluctantly perhaps, recognize it as such, and tens of thousands of them 

 are killed annually, especially in the valleys of the San Joaquin and 

 Sacramento, where it abounds. Such slaughter is abhorrent to all bird- 

 lovers. It is not alone because of the bird's approved usefulness. The 

 men who do the killing are often the very ones who would profit most by 



1164 



MOURNFUL SQUABS 



Photo by Dickey 



