BIRDS OF AMERICA. 



THE ZENAIDA DOVE. 



~f CoLUMBA ZENAIDA, Boiiaj}. 

 PLATE CCLXXXI.— Male and Female. 



The impressions made on the mind in youth, are frequently stronger than 

 those at a more advanced period of life, and are generally retained. My 

 father often told me, that when yet a child, my first attempt at drawing was 

 from a preserved specimen of a Dove, and many times repeated to me that 

 birds of this kind are usually remarkable for the gentleness of their disposi- 

 tion, and that the manner in which they prove their mutual affection, and 

 feed their offspring, was undoubtedly intended in part to teach other beings 

 a lesson of connubial and parental attachment. Be this as it may, hypothesis 

 or not, I have always been especially fond of Doves. The timidity and 

 anxiety which they all manifest, on being disturbed during incubation, and 

 the continuance of their mutual attachment for years, are distinguishing traits 

 in their character. Who can approach a sitting Dove, hear its notes of 

 remonstrance, or feel the feeble strokes of its wings, without being sensible 

 that he is committing a wrong act? 



The cooing of the Zenaida Dove is so peculiar, that one who hears it for 

 the first time naturally stops to ask, "What bird is that?" A man who was 

 once a pirate assured me that several times, while at certain wells dug in the 

 burning shelly sands of a well known Key, which must here be nameless, 

 the soft and melancholy cry of the Doves awoke in his breast feelings which 

 had long slumbered, melted his heart to repentance, and caused him to linger 



Vol. V. 2 



