R-U.S.F. 8/1 



This system of catching "birds and putting nxmlDcred bands on thcjm 

 and noting tho time and place has also shown conclusively that mourning 

 doves do return to the same fields year after year. Knowing that thoro is 

 a tendency for birds reared over a widely distributed area in the northern 

 part of their rango to congregate in a r^lativeljy" restricted region in the 

 South many prove a highly important help in tai:ing effective steps to 

 protect them. But why do mourning doves mourn? 



Mr, Lincoln says that is just their mating song. They don't seem 

 really to feel sad about it. On the contrary, thoy appear highly pleased. 

 Of course, that sad, sweet cooing is heard quite often. 



Mourning doves earn their reputation for affection, too. Mr. Lincoln 

 says they are very demonstrative. They spend plenty of time billing and 

 cooing. However, it is a litile harder to see how they ever became a symbol 

 of peace and good will. That is a modern idea, aiid Mr, Lincoln has not 

 been able to find it in ancient bird lore and legends. As a matter of fact, 

 he points out, when two male nourning doves get to fighting over a lady 

 friend, they are most vicious i"ghtors. Unlike most birds, they will often 

 fight till one or tho other is killed. 



The love-nest of a mourning dove is a notoriously flimsy affair. It 

 is a little more than a platform of loose sticks. The miracle is how it 

 keeps together and what keeps the eggs from falling out. Usually the doves 

 build in lou trees, and Mr. Lincoln says that many times he has looked up 

 under a dove r.est and seen the two little pure-white eggs plainly visible 

 through the bottom of the flimsy nest. 



After the eggs have hatched, diiring the first few days in the life of 

 the two dove squabs, they arc fed on "pigeon milk." Some folks seem to think 

 "pigeon milk" is a joke. Mr. Lincoln tells me however, that "pigeon milk" 

 is a vjry good name for that first food for young mourning doves. What it 

 really is is tho lining of tho crop of the parent bird, which peels off at 

 this time, and looks very much like cottage cheese. 



As the birds get older, the "pigeon milk" becomes mixed with seed 

 softened by it, so the young birds gradually get used to a full seed diet. 

 Calling it "p igeon milk" in the case of doves is not incorrect, because a 

 dove is a pigeon, or rather the pigeon is a dove. The pigeon is nothing 

 but a domesticated blue- rock dove of Surope. It is much bigger, but looks 

 very mich like the wild bird. Our mourning dove is a close cousin to it. 



Our mourning dove is also first cousin to that other dove, the 

 famous passenger pigeon, which Father used to kill by the hundreds v7ith a 

 fishing pole, and grandfather claLmed he had seen flying in such big flocks 

 as to throw a shadow on the earth for hours. 



In fact, even yet, folks every once in a while report that they have 

 found a passenger pigeon. It always turns out, however, that the find is only 

 an extra big moxirning dove, a band-tailed pigeon, or something other than the 

 passenger pigeon, Thoro arc no more passenger pigeons, Tho last of those big 

 doves died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Now the stuffed skin of that last 

 passenger pigeon can be seen in the United States National Museum at Washing- 

 ton, The last of its race, it stands a sad reminder of the extinction of a 

 species. 



