(_Zenaidura macroura_) Pigeon family
_Called also_: CAROLINA DOVE; TURTLE DOVE
(Illustration facing p. 111)
_Length_--12 to 13 inches. About one-half as large again as
the robin.
_Male_--Grayish Drown 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
ph[oe]be, 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 a 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.