236 Birds Every Child Should Know 
Panama, in winter, as far north as Ontario in 
warm weather. Not until nursery duties, 
which begin early in the spring, are over, late 
in summer, do they give up their shy, unsocial 
habits to enjoy the company of a few friends. 
When they rise on whistling wings from tree- 
bordered fields, where they have been feeding 
on seeds and grain, not a gun is fired: no one 
cares to eat them. 
Only the cuckoo of our common birds builds 
so flimsy a nest as the dove’s adored darling. 
I am sorry to tell you she is a slack, incompetent 
housekeeper, but evidently her lover is blind 
to every fault. What must the expert phoebe 
think of such a poorly made, untidy cradle, or 
that bustling, energetic housewife, Jenny Wren, 
or the tiniest of clever architects, the humming- 
bird? It is a wonder that the dove’s two white 
eggs do not fall through the rickety, rimless, 
unlined lattice. How scarred and bruised the 
naked bodies of the twins must be by the sticks ! 
Like pigeons, hummingbirds, flickers, and some 
other feathered parents, doves feed their fledg- 
lings by pumping partly digested food — ^“pig- 
eon’s milk”-— from their own crops into theirs. 
When they leave the open woodlands to 
take a dust bath in the road, or to walk about 
and collect gravel for their interior grinding 
machines, or to get a drink of water before 
going to sleep, you may have a good look at 
