![Birds and Nature, Vol. 12 No. 3 [August 1902] - Various](/cover_235218.jpg "Birds and Nature, Vol. 12 No. 3 [August 1902] - Various")
a dove in which to place the holy sacrament, no doubt because the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ in the form of a dove.
Noah’s dove, of still older fame, was immortalized as a constellation in the sky.
The plaintive “coo” of the dove has also added to the sentiment about it. The poets delight to refer to it as a sorrowful bird. One of them says:
“Oft I heard the tender dove
In fiery woodlands making moan.”
The dove, “most musical, most melancholy,” is the singer whom the mocking bird does not attempt to imitate.
There is a Philippine legend that of all birds only the dove understands the human tongue. The pigeon tribe is noted for its friendliness to man —
“Of all the feathered race
Alone it looks unscared on the human face.”
The word dove means “diver” and refers to the way this bird ducks its head.
It has purposely designed “wing whistles” and often strikes the wings together when beginning to fly.
The broken wing dodge it often practices tends to prove that its ancestors built on the ground.
The nest of the dove has no architectural beauty and it is not a good housekeeper, and is something of a gad-about. Indeed, doves are not so gentle in character as they are usually portrayed. They are sometimes impolite to each other and occasionally indulge in a family “scrap.” But as nothing in this world is quite perfect, the dove with its fine form, and beautiful quaker-like garb, may be accepted as one of the most interesting of our birds.
THE GREEN-CRESTED FLYCATCHER
(Empidonax virescens.)
The Green-crested or Acadian Flycatcher is a frequent summer resident in the eastern United States, and through the valley of the Mississippi river it migrates as far northward as Manitoba, where it is said to be quite common.
This bird exhibits no haste in its northward spring journey, for it is one of the latest species to arrive on its breeding grounds in the higher latitudes and as winter approaches, it leaves the United States entirely and winters in Mexico, Central America and northern South America.
If we would make the acquaintance of the Green-crested Flycatcher, we must seek it in woodlands in the vicinity of some stream or other body of water. Its favorite haunts are “deep, shady, second-growth hardwood forests, on rather elevated ground, especially beech woods with little undergrowth, or bottom lands not subject to periodical overflow.” It is not an over shy bird, yet it is rather difficult to find, for its colors are in perfect harmony with its surroundings as it passes from tree to tree through the dark foliage of the lower limbs. So perfect is this color-harmony that Major Charles Bendire said, “I have several times failed to detect the bird when I was perfectly certain it was within twenty feet of me,” and Neltje Blanchan likens its movements to “a leaf that is being blown about, touched by the sunshine flittering through the trees, and partly shaded by the young foliage casting its first shadows.”
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