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Birds and Flowers. 
morning, they will sit and plume themselves in 
the sunshine busily, cooing away all the time, and 
seeming very comfortable. Doves, if kindly treated, 
become exceedingly tame ; I think they were quite 
the first pets that I ever had, and they were 
amazing favourites. They are nice quiet birds T 
very easily managed. Their food should be barley, 
or grain of some kind, with hemp-seed or linseed. 
They like a good deal of change, and they are 
very fond of bread, either dry or soaked. 
Their great delight is bathing in a large shallow 
pan of water, or in a little fountain, and when they 
are so tame as to fly about on a lawn this is by far 
the pleasantest way of giving them their baths — - 
for they make no small splashing. 
You should always give your Doves a great deal 
of nice fine dry gravel, and my Doves were ex- 
ceedingly fond of a little bay-salt mixed up with 
old mortar or gravel, as it is for pigeons. A little 
bay-salt now and then can at any rate do no harm,, 
and it is a great thing generally for keeping ani- 
mals in good health. When you give them this, 
they very seldom have bad throats, which is one 
of the few diseases that Doves often have, especially 
if their water is not kept very clean and fresh. 
Doves came originally, you must remember, 
