A TROPICAL DOVE.
A long letter from the Malay States consists almost wholly of quaint accounts of the flora and fauna ; and it is pleasant to hear of the natural humaneness of many of the natives, as in the following instance. My correspondent cut down the greater part of a Bougainvillea, and as he was burning the rubbish saw a dove's nest among the flames. Going back to the relic trunk he found two young doves on the ground not yet fledged enough to fly. His distress at the sight was relieved by a native who assured him that if a new nest were made and set up on what was left of the trunk all would be well. The only handy material was some paper shavings. These were woven into a sort of nest, the young deposited in it; and within a few minutes the old birds were brooding the young as if nothing had happened. It is a quaint difference that the old birds must on occasion brood the young rather more in tropical countries than in cold—" in order to shade them from the sun." On the subject of saving the life of birds a bird- lover reports that a young owl found hurt on the ground was saved in the same way as a damaged gold-crest, whose case was reported last week. The cure was just water, applied both externally, to the head, and internally.
Previous page
