88 AN UNFORTUNATE MOURNING DOVE 
and clucked from easily concealed perches, and Jays 
called harshly from the surviving wood lot close by. 
The nesting-place was menaced by other enemies, 
for crows called and circled about where the Pines 
rose above the crowding Elms, Maples, and Beeches. 
The clump of shrubbery where the Dove took 
flight was the second growth from a much older 
stump, partly concealed, naked of bark, and rapidly 
softening and decaying. In the mossy centre a seed- 
ling Elm had taken parasitic root, and close beside 
it in a slight depression lay the twin white eggs. 
There was no attempt at concealment, and from one 
direction they could be seen plainly at a distance of 
twenty feet. It seemed strange that these tempting 
eggs should be thus freely exposed when Squirrels, 
Jays, and Crows, the three most inveterate nest 
robbers, were noisily active all about. There was only 
a bare apology for a nest. A few fine twigs and roots, 
all dead and dry, had been laid promiscuously across 
the slight hollow and had been settled down by the 
pressure of the bird's body, affording merely a resting 
place where the eggs would not roll. It seemed the 
tempting of fate to leave them thus conspicuously 
exposed, but it was impossible to aid their natural 
guardian in protecting them. 
Next morning the knowledge gained permitted a 
more stealthy approach from a point where the open 
bushes afforded a view of the sitting Dove, but she 
