THE ZENAIDA DOVE. 
COLUMBA ZENAIDA, Bonaj). 
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 mutdal 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 sen- 
sible 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 
