"The life history of this beautiful Pigeon should teach every one the necessity of protecting birds by law. Up to fifty years ago the Passenger Pigeon was extremely plentiful everywhere east of the great plains--there were many millions in a single flock sometimes. It was a most valuable bird, its flesh being particularly well-flavored and tender. It nested in large colonies that often stretched unbroken for many miles in the woods, and was both hardy and prolific. If it had been protected in the breeding season and hunted fairly as an article of food at other times, we should still be enjoying Pigeon pie as freely as we did in my boyhood. But as the population of the country increased, these great flocks were cruelly slaughtered, for the mere greed of killing them; thousands were often left to decay upon the ground, and now I do not believe that any one of you has ever seen a wild Pigeon before to-day."
"We have Pigeon pie at home in the winter," said Dodo.
"It might have been tame pie and it was very good! But, Uncle Roy, why did people want to kill these good, food birds when they didn't care to eat them?"
"It is difficult to say exactly, little girl. People living in what we call a state of nature, like African savages, or as our American Indians once did, seem to follow Heart of Nature's law; 'Kill _only_ what ye need for food.' But many people that are called civilized never think of natural law at all, and having a coarse streak in their natures desire to kill wild things merely for the sake of killing. It is against such people that laws must be made by those who have more intelligence.
"Now for your Dove, Nat--called the Mourning Dove from his mournful 'coo-o-coo-o!''
"At first," said Nat, "when I saw it in the glass case it looked sort of bluish-brown. But near by it is greenish-brown and gray on top, and its head and neck have bright colors, like what you see on silver that has not been cleaned for some time or the spoon with which you have been eating boiled eggs."
"We call those colors metallic tints," interrupted the Doctor, to help Nat out.
"Thank you; that is what I was trying to say. It is just like what Rap called soap-bubble colors on the Pigeon's neck, but this Dove has got black specks like velvet on the neck too, and a black band on the tail with white tips to the feathers; underneath it is dull purple and sort of buff, and its feet are red, and it's about a foot long."