The Mourning Dove 
(Zenaidura macroura) 
(carolinensis) 
HERE has been much controversy over the standing of this beau- 
tiful northern member of the Pigeon family as to whether it shall 
be classed as a migratory bird, sportsmen contending that it is not, and 
bird conservationists equally insistent that it is. It remained for the 
bird banders to prove its standing, and in an earlier number of the 
Bulletin was published the results of the trial of a hunter in Georgia, in 
whose possession was found a banded dove. A wire was sent to the 
Biological Survey in Washington, D. C., giving the band number, and 
the records showed that the dove had been banded in Waukegan, 
Illinois, by Wm. I. Lyon. This record not only proved the hunter guilty 
of shooting a migratory bird out of season, but positively established 
the dove as a migratory bird. 
As one travels across Illinois either by train or by automobile, pairs 
of doves fly across the highway or along the railroad: right of way, 
seemingly in such numbers that it does not seem possible that their 
number might decrease from year to year. 
The opening of the hunting season, however, sadly diminishes the 
dove population, for their size makes them an easy mark for the man 
or boy with a gun. 
Contrary to general understanding that seed eating birds, when young, 
are reared on insects, the young of the mourning dove are fed by the 
regurgitation of partially digested food by the parent birds into the ever- 
ready throat of the young. Young doves are entirely dependent on the 
parent birds until fully grown, hence the destruction of the adult doves 
results in the starvation of the young. 
Mourning doves are quite irregular in their nesting habits and it is 
not unusual for nestlings to be found after the open season for shooting 
- begins. The destruction of the adult doves may then automatically 
cause the death of the young. 
On account of its size and it being primarily a seed eater, the mourn- 
ing dove is of the greatest value because of the enormous number of 
weed seeds eaten every day during the summer. 
If one will multiply the number of doves noted on a journey by 5000, 
a very good estimate may be made of the value of this delightful sum- 
mer resident to the farmer, as a low estimate of the number of seeds 
consumed by each adult mourning dove runs from five to eight thou- 
sand per day. 
This beneficial bird should be included with the quail in a campaign 
to educate rural communities as to the great value of both to the 
farmer and orchardist. 
