Rock dove

“ In these places it multiplies in amazing numbers, its increase being almost wholly unchecked by man, on account of the inaccessible cliffs in which it lays its eggs and nurtures its young, its only enemies being a few of the birds and beasts of prey, which can exercise but a trifling influence on these prolific birds.
In other parts of the country the Egyptian Rock Dove (Columba Schimperi) takes the place of the more northern species. It is a little smaller than our own Rock Dove, and has not the whitish plumage on the lower part of the back. ”

“ How deliciously do the crystal waters of the Wye and the Dove rush along such valleys, or dales, as they there are called. With what a wild variety do the gray rocks soar up amid their woods and copses. How airily stand in the clear heavens the lofty limestone precipices, and the gray edges of rock gleam cut from the bare green downs—there never called downs. ”

“ The bare rock would frighten her, and the sun would dazzle her eyes. So man bindeth the eagle by a bond long enough for the dove, and quoth he, ‘Be patient!’ I am not patient. I am not a silly dove, that I should be so. ”

“ The nest of the Rock Dove is a mere heap of straw, dry grass, and twigs, with a slight hollow in its centre for the reception of the eggs, which have a glossy, pure white shell. The female alone builds, but is supplied with materials by her devoted mate, who remains constantly near her both day and night. The blind and unusually helpless young are hatched about sixteen or eighteen days after the eggs are laid, and leave the shell within from twenty-four to thirty-six hours of each other. ”

“ Passing the sand grouse of Africa and Russia, we come to the pigeons, represented in a bewildering variety of forms in every part of the world. The United States has several species—the common wood dove, or mourning dove, the extinct "wild pigeon," once here in millions, the banded pigeon of the Pacific Coast, and several kinds of ground doves in the southwest. The rock dove, which is the original of the domestic varieties, is still wild in Europe, together with several other species ”

“ She looked at the old rock by the path now slippery with rain. She looked 76at the tall and prickly cedar drenched with mist and spray. She looked out at the storm-beaten sea, then she looked back once more at the dripping evergreen. The dove in its thorny spire was gone—the dove with the purple ripples on its neck. It had never built another nest. Shivering, shivering, she went on, crossed the porch, where the arms of the bloomless rose, weird and gaunt, flung down great heavy tears at her feet, and, still shivering, she went into the house and shut the door. ”

“ In the Orkneys it breeds in the crevices of the rocks, the nests being at such a depth that they are quite out of reach. During the day the Doves associate in flocks and search for food, which consists principally of grain and seeds.
The Rock Dove breeds twice in the season, each brood consisting of two young, generally a male and a female. The eggs are white and of a short oval shape, rather pointed at one end. From this species our Dove-cote Pigeons are derived, and they, like their original progenitors, seldom roost or settle on trees. ”

“ All were in the immature plumage, and, though I went quite close to them on the 13th and 17th, I could see no signs of any dark feathers coming on the necks of any.
Rock-Dove (Columba livia) .—The Rock-Doves breed in considerable numbers in the caves at the east end of the mainland, and, though they are said to be less numerous than they were twenty years ago, there does not appear to be much danger of their extermination, the coast being very exposed, and quite unapproachable except in a flat calm, and even then they are by no means easy to shoot. ”

“ Nor is the summit bald, but tufted with dwarf cedars and oaks, which, as they file away on either flank, mingle with a heavier growth of hickories and chest-nuts. A few stunted kalmias and hemlock-spruces have found foothold in the clefts upon the face of the rock, showing a tawny green, that blends prettily with the scars, lichens, and weather-stains of the cliff; all which show under a sunset light richly and changefully as the breast of a dove. ”

“ But the seven magicians became seven herons, and pursued the fish, and were on the point of catching it, when it looked up and beheld a dove in the sky, and thereupon transformed itself into a dove. The seven magicians now became seven hawks, and followed the dove over mountains and rivers, and would certainly have seized upon it, but the dove, flying eastwards to the peaceful cave in the rock Gulumtschi, concealed itself in the bosom of Nangasuna Baktschi (the Instructor) . ”

“ She stopped her horse and peered in every direction. Nothing but the undulations of the moor, hill and dale, a dead tree outlined against the sky, masses of rock uncouth in form, bushes which whispered in the wind, the babble of a tarn somewhere behind her, though she had not remembered passing it. There were no lights in any direction, none even from the heavens, for the stars had gone out. ”

“ And softly as a flake of snow, a white-bosomed thing with bright, gentle eyes alighted beside the faun, and cooed and cooed again, and drew yet a little farther off and cooed once more.
Then the serpent looked upon the dove—which is sacred to Aphrodite—and glided from its smooth' resting-place, as water glides between the fingers of a hunter who drinks from the hollow of his hand in hours of torrid heat and weariness. And the dove, still retreating, drew after her the guardian snake with topaz eyes. ”

“ How strange it is; the cry of this bird all at once transports the traveller to his own land! Truly there is a magic in sound. With the poorest appliances, the slightest equipment, the creative fancy can in a moment build a bridge to the Fatherland. The call of this beautiful dove sounding here on every side, its love-inspired circling high in air above the tops of the giants of the primeval forest, surrounds it with a dream-picture, and makes me suddenly breathe the air 297 of the beech woods. ”

“ Even where something resembling a forest appeared farther on it turned out to be a dismal wilderness of dwarf trees with spiny trunks and savage thorny branches without a suggestion of undergrowth or ground plants beneath them. Dead, flat, monotonous, made doubly mournful by the occasional moan of a wild dove, a more dreary, uninspiring landscape it would be hard to imagine; the vista that spread away as far as the eye could see seemed wholly uninviting to human habitation. ”

“ An immense number of a small kind of dove, with the slightest tinge of red, scarcely a blush, blended with their usual silvery grey plumage, kept darting from bush to bush, as we disturbed them anew, every few yards we advanced, whilst the little antelope of Salt, and a large kind of partridge, were not unfrequently seen running beneath the thin underwood. ”

“ To any one who knows anything of doves, who will merely go out into the field or the farm-yard and look at them, and who will use his own eyes, that figure is striking enough, and grand enough. It is the swiftness of the dove, and not its fancied gentleness that is spoken of. The dove appearing, as you may see it again and again, like a speck in the far off sky, rushing down with a swiftness which outstrips the very eagle ”

“ In the midst of its most ardent love-song—call it cooing, murmuring, moaning, or what you will—the dove breaks off suddenly as if inspired by its own music, then claps its wings loudly and sharply several times, soars aloft, spreads its wings and floats slowly down to a tree-top, there to begin its song anew. ”

“ What if they had found her footsteps and followed? No, that was hardly possible, for the ridge of rock began immediately at the road, and thanks to his precautions, she would leave no footprints.
Slowly he descended, choosing his footing with quick deliberation, for the slightest sound, the dislodging of a twig or a sliver of crumbled stone and the crag of the Thorwald would become in a moment a hornet’s nest. Fortunately the back of the rock screened him from the road, and unless von Stromberg had sent men into the woods to left and right, there was no chance of discovery. ”

“ But yet the design well unfolds her story; the hand darting rays of light [Pg 55] signifies the revelation given her from heaven, and the blessing that followed it; while the two stars tell of Jerusalem, as also does the elaborately-fashioned cross that is standing on the altar, the frontal to which, in the upper border, seems ornamented in purple, with an inscription, now unreadable, but the last letters of which look as if they are R L I. The bird, perhaps a dove, has no part in the saint’s history, but is a fancy of the artist. ”

“ When insinuating yourself into the secrets of the bird world, it is not well to be too obtrusive at first: it is a mistake to spend the day when you make your first call; so contenting myself with thinking of the morrow, and fixing the small oak in my memory, I took myself off before the blue-gray should tell on me to her mate. As I rose to go, a dove flew out of the oak—she had been brooding right over my head. Another nest, and a mourning dove's, one of the most gentle and winning of birds! ”

“ She lingered in the shadow under the big mountain-ash at the entrance to the farm, and stood looking about her. As she stood there a strange thing happened; a flock of doves came and lit beside her.
She could hardly believe that they were real birds, for doves are not in the habit of moving about after sundown. It must have been the beautiful moonlight that had awakened these. They must have thought it was dawn and flown from their dove-cotes, only to become confused, hardly knowing where they were. When they saw a human being they flew over to her, as if she would set them right. ”

“ Sometimes the form of a dove is voluntarily assumed by the two young lovers, to flee from the persecution of the monster; as, for instance, in the sixth of the Novelline di Santo Stefano. Sometimes the funereal dove (like the funereal crow) is the bringer of joy and good things to men and gods. ”

“ The hum of insects, and sudden disturbance of rich-coloured parrots, screaming and fluttering through the branches, and the strong, short, rapid flight of the dove, with its melancholy cooing, transported us in imagination a long way inland, whereas we were not three hundred yards from the beach. We now wended our way towards a small eminence, through long grass, in most places interwoven with creepers, compelling us to tear our way through them in the ascent. ”

“ They have not laboured in mental searching as we have; they have not wasted their time looking among empty straw for the grain that is not there. They have been in the sunlight. Since the days of ancient Greece the doves have remained in the sunshine; we who have laboured have found nothing. In the sunshine, by the shady verge of woods, by the sweet waters where the wild dove sips, there alone will thought be found. ”

“ When it has reached the door, there seems to be a struggle of life and death between the two creatures,—the obscene, hideous, crane-like bird, and the pure, white innocent,—till, at last, by force, the dove is compelled to open its throat, into which its enemy drops the worm or snake. ”

“ Flocks of sea birds fluttered around our masts, for this colder region is the home of the beautiful sea dove, the great white albatross and an innumerable multitude of smaller kinds, that on the approach of stormy weather seem to rise, as by the stroke of a magician’s wand, from the sea. ”

“ I should think they could be watched farthest in their flight.”
“Because doves fare like men. Whoever shines very brightly and is seen from a distance, is set upon by opponents and envious people, and birds of prey pounce upon the white doves first. I tell you, Captain, whoever has eyes in his head, can learn in a dove-cote how things come to pass among Adam and Eve’s posterity on earth.”
“There is quarrelling and kissing up here just as there is in Leyden.” ”

“ Why, surely that she looks like a beautiful white dove. It is a summer day; the winds are soft; fly south, then, White Dove, and carry to her this message of tenderness, and entreaty, and peace? Surely the gentle ear will listen to you before the winter comes and the skies grow dark overhead, and there is no white dove at all, but an angry sea-eagle, with black wings outspread and talons ready to strike, Oh, what is the sound in the summer air? Is it the singing of the sea-maiden of Colonsay, bewailing still the loss of her lovers in other years? We cannot stay to listen; the winds are fair ”

“ She was over the sea now. The Yellow Dove felt a new breeze and the wheel tugged under her hand, but the machine lifted at the touch and wheeled like a gull to speed down the coast. Ostend! The Kursaal! If she could get a sight of it! It was dangerous, but she must go lower—three—two hundred feet from the sea, where she might make out familiar profiles against the sky.
The waves rose to meet her, reflecting the starlight, [317] and just below her to the left the surf rolled in lines of white upon the beach. Dunes, dunes interminably, with here and there a collection of huts. ”

“ What a quantity of old lore one might collect about the dove, and as for the allusions in ancient and modern literature they must be legion—from the familiar Scriptural phrase about the turtle to Chaucer’s ‘the wedded turtil with her heartë trewe,’ from Greek myth or Roman poem to Tennyson’s ‘moan of doves in immemorial elms.’ Doubtless much of the dove-lore is so well known that it would be superfluous to repeat it here. As the symbol of peace, of the Spirit, the dove herself is universally familiar. ”