Naturalist.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 407, 25 February 1904, Page 7

Naturalist.

PIGEONS AND DOVES. 3|£ssKEOM the very earliest timas jI&Il P*B oons ana doves have been aC?» associated with religious ceremonies. Probably tbese birds were used in sacrifise even before Noah's dove brought back the olive branch to the Ark, and over and over again in the Scriptures we read of the turtle-doves and pigeoas offered in sacrifice in fact, thousands of them were reared by the Jews fos this purpose Wild pigeons were extremely numerous) in the Holy Land, a3 they still are in most countries, where there »re large extents of forest or of lonely rooks where they can make their nests.; In the Holy Land the doves still make their nests 'in the sides of tho hole's miuth,' instead of in trees, as they usually do in Europe, though the blue rookpigeoas wbioh abtuud on many of cur rocky co&s's make their nests in the caves and clefts of the atoap cliffs. The connection of ' these birdß with sacred story culminates in the descent of the' Holy Ghost in the form of a dove upon our Lord at His baptism. In memory'of tbis, the Euseians will not eat doves or pigeons, which play en important part in many of the ceremonies of the Greek Church. It is little wonder that a hos fc of legends hiive gfcthered round the pretty buds whom med'seval pointers to represent in the hands of the infant Saviour. A quaint old legend tells that a dove perched upon the Cross, murmuring plaintively 'Kyrie! Kyrie!' all through the long hours of the Passion, and declares that the mournful • Coo-o 1 Cjo-ol' echoes the sacred name. '• Its was not only among the Jews and Christiana that these birds were sacred, The Hindoos regard them with veneration as they fly in clouds round the t*mplae, and think they bring good luok. The Mahometans have a reverence for them, because of the pet pigeon of Mahomet, which perched on his shoulder and fed on wheat hidden ia the ear of the prophet;; henca the Arabs say that the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, came daily to whisper counsel to Mahometl At Mecca the blue pigeons are sacred, and no one will venture to kill them. ■ The- Greeks and Bimans associated doves with Venus, whose chariot was supposed to be drawn by them, and they were also connected with the oracle of Dodona, where it was said the responses were made by the black pigeons that inhabited the neighbouring groves. It waß said that two pigeons flow from Thabea, one resting at Dadona, the other at Libja, where the temple of Jupiter Ammon wai built. It is supposed that the story arose from the fact that in the dialect of Epirua the same Word means pigeoas and old women—hence the priestesses were th 3 black pigeons of the growß. Pliny declared that the pigeon was a vain bird, probably because of its habit of strutting up and down and bending its head. The dove owes its name to this habit—it is the Anglo-Saxon 'dufan,' to dive,

Doves are considered the type of gentleness, innocence, peace, love, and fidelity; though,', truth to tell, the whole pigeoa tribe are excessively greedy and often quarrelsome. There are four British species, and other members of the family occasionally visit those shores- Tlie common woodpigeon, or .'wood-quest,' is the moat familiar, as its plaintive cooing may be heard all day long in almost every part 6! the country where it can find a few trees in whose branches it can make its untidy nest, which is merely a sort of platform of sticks, thrown so carelessly across the fork of a bough that it seems extraordinary that the young birds and eggs do not fall through the interstices, or that a high wind does not blow.the nest away.