Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

That trim, gentle-looking, drab-colored bird, erroneously called turtledove by dwellers in the United States, and generally deemed so utterly innocent and pure that to kill it for the table or any other use is branded as heinous in the extreme, is not so innocent after all. Its moaning, sad-sounding, voice is a mockery and a cheat. Its soft dark eyes are a sham; its sober Quaker garb is calculated to deceive, its timid movements are not to be trusted. When it has once been insulted or injured by one of its kind, the dove becomes as cruel and outrageously heartless as any murderer can be. Some years ago I witnessed a fight between two female morning doves which for utter barbarousness could not be exceeded. I was angling in a brook for sun-perch, half-prone on a grassy bank lost in a brown study, with a cigar between by lips, when I happened to see a dove alight on a gnarled bough of a plane tree a few yards distant. Immediately it began to coo in that dolefully plaintive strain so well known to every lover of nature, and was soon joined by a male, who perched himself within a foot or two of her. I spied their nest, not yet finished, in the fork of an iron-wood near by. The birds made very expressive signs to each other with their heads by a series of bows, and sidewise motions, of which I understood enough to know that some intruder was near-perhaps they meant me. The fish were not biting any too well, but the shade was pleasant and the grass fragrant, the sound of the water very soothing, and the flow of the wind steady and cooling, so I did not care to move just to humor the whim of a pair of billing doves. It proved, however, after all, that I was not the cause of alarm. Another female dove presently dropped like a hawk from the dark, dense mass of leaves above the pair, and struck the first on the back with beak and wings. A fight ensued, witnessed with calm interest by myself and the male dove.
At first the combatants struggled desperately together on the bough, fiercely beating each other with their wings, and plucking out the feathers from breast and neck, all the time uttering low, querulous notes differing from anything I had ever before heard. Pretty soon they fell off the bough, and came whirling down upon the ground, where they continued the battle with constantly increasing fury, their eyes fairly flashing fire, and cutting and thrusting with their beaks like swordsmen. Blood began to show itself about their heads, and in places their necks were quite bare of feathers. When at last one of them became exhausted that further struggle was impossible, the other proceeded to take its stand upon its helpless opponent, and would have quickly made an end of it had I not interfered. The vanquished bird was minus an eye, and was unable to fly for some minutes. The secret of the battle was jealousy. The male sat by and watched in a nonchalant way until it was all over, when he very lovingly strutted to the victorious dove and began cooing in a low soothing tone. From that day to this I have repudiated the figure “innocent as a dove.”-Appleton’s Journal.