The Western Mourning Dove 
In late summer and early autumn the Doves begin to gather into 
groups, or small flocks, although they cannot, like the Pigeons, be char¬ 
acterized as “highly gregarious.” Food, taken chiefly from the ground, 
consists, in part, of fallen grains, but always largely, and often exclusively, 
of weed seeds. The 
industry and capacity 
of these birds as weed- 
seed destroyers is 
enormous. Beal 
reports one stomach 
which contained 6400 
seeds of the trouble¬ 
some foxtail ( Chce - 
tochloa), another 7500 
seeds of the yellow 
wood sorrel, and 
another 9200 seeds of 
mixed varieties, but 
mostly noxious weeds. 
These were single 
meals, and the bird 
requires several such 
in the day. Suppose 
each bird consumed 
three cubic inches, 
a very modest allow¬ 
ance, of weed-seed per 
diem. That would 
make half a bushel of weed-seed per annum, enough to seed ten acres of 
land with any one of a dozen varieties of plant pests. Judged by this 
standard, and it is a fair one, the Mourning Dove bulks large as an 
economic factor in the development of California. And for pay, this zeal¬ 
ous “hired man” asks only exemption, for the trifling amount of standing 
grain (chiefly wheat) occasionally taken is agreed by experts to be a prac¬ 
tically negligible factor, not over two per cent of the bird’s total fare. 
The question whether the Mourning Dove is or is not a “game-bird” 
is one which I cannot bring myself to discuss dispassionately. Our laws, 
reluctantly perhaps, recognize it as such, and tens of thousands of them 
are killed annually, especially in the valleys of the San Joaquin and 
Sacramento, where it abounds. Such slaughter is abhorrent to all bird- 
lovers. It is not alone because of the bird’s approved usefulness. The 
men who do the killing are often the very ones who would profit most by 
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