Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/165

Rh and shapely, their tails neither very long nor very short, their wings generally fitted for swift and strong flight. They rarely carry any meretricious ornament, such as crests, or trains, or fancy plumes, but they are all beautiful and some of them exquisitely lovely. Yet their loveliness is not that of golden orioles and kingfishers, but rather of clouds and distant hills and soft sunsets. Nor is their beauty in their feathers only; their eyes and their feet, and even their beaks, match their plumage and complete the effect. I think also that all the motions and attitudes of pigeons are more graceful than those of other birds. But these are outward features. There are also inward characters by which the tribe is not less markedly distinguished. They are all vegetarians, some feeding on grain and some on fruit, but refusing animal-food in every shape. It is said, indeed, that they sometimes eat snails, but, if this is true, I believe they must have swallowed them by mistake for seeds. Such mistakes will happen to all of us. I knew a person whose fate it was once to mistake lizard's eggs for small white "sweeties." But let us leave that subject and get back to pigeons. They drink like horses, and not by sips as other birds do. They all lay white eggs, never more than two in number, and make simple, flat nests of twigs, which they generally place in trees or bushes, but sometimes in holes. They never sing, nor chirp, nor screech. Their voice is a plaintive moan, or coo, verging sometimes on a mellow whistle. But their highest distinction lies in the strength of their social affections and the purity of their domestic life, In