THE CAROLINA TURTLE-DOVE. 
37 
the tree where his mate is, or on one very near it. These manoeuvres are 
frequently repeated during the days of incubation, and occasionally when 
the male bird is courting the female. No sooner do they alight than they 
jerk out their tail in a very graceful manner, and balance their neck and 
head. Their migrations are not so extensive as those of the Wild Pigeon 
(Ectopistes migratoria ); nor are they performed in such numbers, two 
hundred and fifty or three hundred Doves together being considered a large 
flock. 
On the ground, along the fences, or on the branches of trees, the Carolina 
Turtle walks with great ease and grace, frequently jerking its tail. It is 
able to run with some swiftness when searching for food in places where it 
is scarce. It seldom bathes, but drinks by swallowing the water in long 
draughts, with the bill deeply immersed, frequently up to the eyes. 
They breed in every portion of the United States that I have visited, and 
according to the temperature of different localities, rear either one or two 
broods in the season. In Louisiana, they lay eggs early in April, and 
sometimes in the month of March, and have there two broods. In the 
State of Connecticut, they seldom begin to lay before the middle of May, 
and as seldom have more than one brood. On the borders of Lake Superior, 
they are still later. They lay two eggs of a pure white colour, and having 
some degree of translucency. They make their nest in any kind of tree, on 
horizontal branches or twigs. It is formed of a few dry sticks, so loosely 
put together, as to appear hardly sufficient to keep the eggs or young from 
falling. 
The roosting places which the Carolina Turtles prefer are among the long 
grasses found growing in abandoned fields, at the foot of dry stalks of maize, 
or on the edges of meadows, although they occasionally resort to the dead 
foliage of trees, as well as that of different species of evergreens. But in all 
these places they rise and fly at the approach of man, however dark the 
night may be, which proves that the power of sight which they then possess 
is very great. They seldom place themselves very near each other when 
roosting on the ground, but sometimes the individuals of a flock appear 
diffused pretty equally over a whole field. In this particular, they greatly 
differ from our Common Wild Pigeon, which settles in compact masses on 
the limbs of trees during the night. The Doves, however, like the 
Pigeons, are fond of returning to the same roosting grouuds from consi- 
derable distances. A few individuals sometimes mix with the Wild 
Pigeons, as do the latter sometimes with the Doves. 
The Turtle-Dove may with propriety be considered more as a gleaner 
than as a reaper of the husbandman’s fields, scarcely ever committing any 
greater depredation than the picking up of a few grains in seed-time, after 
Vol. Y. 6 
