Length -- 12 to 13 inches. About one-half as large again as the
robin.
Male -- Grayish brown or fawn-color above, varying to bluish
gray. Crown and upper part of head greenish blue, with green
and golden metallic reflections on sides of neck. A black spot
under each ear. Forehead and breast reddish buff; lighter
underneath. (General impression of color, bluish fawn.) Bill
black, with tumid, fleshy covering; feet red; two middle tail
feathers longest; all others banded with black and tipped with
ashy white. Wing coverts sparsely spotted with black. Flanks
and underneath the wings bluish.
Female -- Duller and without iridescent reflections on neck.
Range -- North America, from Quebec to Panama, and westward to
Arizona. Most common in temperate climate, east of Rocky
Mountains.
Migrations -- March. November. Common summer resident not
Migratory south of Virginia.
The beautiful, soft-colored plumage of this incessant and rather melancholy
love-maker is not on public exhibition. To see it we must trace the a-coo-o,
coo-o, coo-oo, coo-o to its source in the thick foliage in some tree in an
out-of-the-way corner of the farm, or to an evergreen near the edge of the
woods. The slow, plaintive notes, more like a dirge than a love-song,
penetrate to a surprising distance. They may not always be the same lovers we
hear from April to the end of summer, but surely the sound seems to indicate
that they are. The dove is a shy bird, attached to its gentle and refined mate
with a devotion that has passed into a proverb, but caring little or nothing
for the society of other feathered friends, and very little for its own kind,
unless after the nesting season has passed. In this respect it differs widely
from its cousins, the wild pigeons, flocks of which, numbering many millions,
are recorded by Wilson and other early writers before the days when netting
these birds became so fatally profitable.
What the dove finds to adore so ardently in the "shiftless housewife," as Mrs.
Wright calls his lady-love, must pass the comprehension of the phoebe, that
constructs such an exquisite home, or of a bustling, energetic Jenny wren,
that "looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of
idleness." She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty feathers,
gentle and refined in manners, but slack and incompetent in all she does. Her
nest consists of few loose sticks. without rim or lining; and when her two
babies emerge from the white eggs, that somehow do not fall through or roll
out of the rickety lattice, their tender little naked bodies must suffer from
many bruises. We are almost inclined to blame the inconsiderate mother for
allowing her offspring to enter the world unclothed -- obviously not her
fault, though she is capable of just such negligence. Fortunate are the baby
doves when their lazy mother scatters her makeshift nest on top of one that a
robin has deserted, as she frequently does. It is almost excusable to take her
young birds and rear them in captivity, where they invariably thrive, mate,
and live happily, unless death comes to one, when the other often refuses food
and grieves its life away.
In the wild state, when the nesting season approaches, both birds make curious
acrobatic flights above the tree-tops; then, after a short sail in midair,
they return to their perch. This appears to be their only giddiness and
frivolity, unless a dust-bath in the country road might be considered a
dissipation.
In the autumn a few pairs of doves show slight gregarious tendencies, feeding
amiably together in the grain fields and retiring to the same roost at
sundown.