The Mexican Ground Dove 



especially in the coastal counties, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Mateo, 

 and San Francisco. 



Authorities. — Coues (Chamaepelia passerina), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 

 1866, p. 93 (Ft. Yuma) ; Littlejohn, Bull. Cooper Orn. Club, vol. i., 1899, p. 73 (Pes- 

 cadero); Stephens, Condor, vol. v., 1903, p. 77 (Ehrenberg, Colo. R.); Todd, Annals 

 Carnegie Mus., vol. viii., 1913, p. 534 (monogr.); Fortiner, Condor, vol. xxii., 1920, 

 p. 154 (Imperial Valley, breeding; habits) ; ibid., vol. xxiii., 1921, p. 168 (nesting through- 

 out the year). 



WHEN a tiny portion of the landscape, hitherto unnoticed, detaches 

 itself from the ground, and charges with a curious little waddling flight into 

 the nearest thicket, we naturally surmise a new sparrow, and we are not a 

 little amazed to find instead a duodecimo dove; and when the mind has 

 reluctantly accepted this quarter-sized pocket-edition of a dove as a fact, 

 expectation is further defeated by finding not a kittenish approximation 

 of dove-like qualities, a cunning, cuddlesome miniature "too cute for 

 anything," but a prosaic dead-in-earnest grubber of the fields, a self- 

 centered, self-sufficient little dwarf who asks only to be let alone, and who 

 sternly repels all overtures, whether of admiration or condescension. 

 For one I resent this elfin self-sufficiency. What business has an under- 

 sized, grown-up squab to maintain such a moral aloofness, to treat us 

 lords of creation as though we were non-existent, or else, when we force 

 the issue of attention, to move off in disdain as though the neighborhood 

 were polluted? In my barefoot days I have seen a bevy of little girls act 

 thus. Perhaps it is the defense of all dwarfs. 



The disaffection began, I think, at the mesquite camp where I 

 found a "Mex" Ground Dove's nest five feet up in a bush and not a 

 hundred feet away. I immediately planned portraiture — surely an in- 

 tended compliment. But as often as any one of us approached within 

 forty feet of that nest the "techy" occupant faced about and sped away. 

 We might sing, we might shout, we might dance if we liked, we might 

 break up lengths of firewood in explosive succession — that was our busi- 

 ness; but look at her sacred person — never! Finally I contrived a tunnel 

 through the foliage, that I might direct the impartial glass eye upon her 

 and snap her unaware. The portrait of Her Huffmess which, highly 

 magnified, adorns the next page, is the record of my loftiest success. 



And yet these birds are among the most familiar visitors about 

 rancherias and clearings. They consume weed-seed and fallen grain 

 wherever found and even mingle with the chickens at morning mess. 

 Singly or in twos or by dozens they seem to show a special fondness for the 

 humble quarters of the Mexican laborers, and it may be they only cherish 

 a special resentfulness against the white race. 



Business-like always, the Ground Dove is not less diligent in court- 



i/6g 



