the domestic pigeon, chanced to drop an egg in one of these nests, and a
young dove was hatched and reared; and, in due time, when able to fly,
it was brought to the dove-cote. I watched it a great deal, and it was
evident that this foster-young, though' with the pigeons, was not nor
ever would be of them, for it could not take kiudly to their flippant
flirty ways. Whenever a male approached it, and with guttural noises and
strange gestures made a pompous declaration of amorous feelings, the
dove would strike vigorously at its undesirable lover, and drive him
off, big as he was; and, as a rule, it would sit apart, afoot or so,
from the others. The dove was also a male; but its male companions, with
instinct tainted by domestication, were ignorant alike of its sex and
different species. Now, it chanced that my pigeons, never being fed and
always finding their own living on the plain like wild birds, were,
although still domestic, not nearly so tame as pigeons usually are in
England. They would not allow a person to approach within two or three
yards of them without flying, and if grain was thrown to them they would
come to it very suspiciously, or not at all. And, of course, the young
pigeons always acquired the exact degree of suspicion shown by the
adults as soon as they were able to fly and consort with the others. But
the foundling Zenaida did not know what their startled gestures and
notes of fear meant when a person approached too near, and as he saw
none of his own kind, he did not acquire their suspicious habit. On the
contrary, he was perfectly tame, although by parentage a wild bird, and
showed no more fear of a man than of a horse. Throughout the winter it
remained with the pigeons, going afield every day with them, and
returning to the dove-cote; but as spring approached the slight tie
which united him to them began to be loosened; their company grew less
and less congenial, and he began to lead a solitary life. But he did not
go to the trees yet. He came to the house, and his favourite perch was
on the low overhanging roof of a vine-covered porch, just over the main