Several things made the bird an interesting subject for study; his reputation for meekness, his alleged silence,--except at wooing time,--and the halo of melancholy with which the poets have invested him. I resolved to make acquaintance with my gentle neighbor, and I sought and found a favorite retreat of the silent family. This was a grove away down in the southeast corner of the grounds, little visited by people, and beloved by birds of several kinds. Till June was half over, the high grass, that I could not bear to trample, prevented exploration in that direction, but as soon as it was cut I made a trip to the little grove, and found it a sort of doves' headquarters, and there, in many hours of daily study, I learned to know him a little, and respect him a good deal. It was a delightful spot the doves had chosen to live in, and so frequented by birds that whichever way I turned my face, in two minutes I wished I had turned it the other, or that I had eyes in the back of my head. With reason, too, for the residents skipped around behind me, and all the interesting things went on at my back. I could hear the flit of wings, low, mysterious sounds, whispering, gentle complaints and hushings, but if I turned--lo! the scene shifted, and the drama of life was still enacted out of my sight. Yet I managed, in spite of this difficulty, to learn several things I did not know before. No one attends to his own business more strictly than the dove. On the ground, where he came for corn, he seemed to see no other bird, and paid not the slightest heed to me in my window, but went about his own affairs in the most matter-of-fact way. Yet I cannot agree with the common opinion, which has made his name a synonym for all that is meek and gentle. He has a will of his own, and a "mild but firm" way of securing it. Sometimes, when all were busy at the corn, one of my Quaker-clad guests would take a notion, for what reason I could not discover, that some other dove must not stay, and he would drive him (or her) off. He was not rude or blustering, like the robin, nor did he make offensive remarks, after the manner of a blackbird; he simply signified his intention of having his neighbor go, and go he did, _nolens volens_. It was droll to see how this "meek and gentle" fellow met blackbird impudence. If one of the sable gentry came down too near a dove, the latter gave a little hop and rustled his feathers, but did not move one step away. For some occult reason the blackbird seemed to respect this mild protest, and did not interfere again. Would one suspect so solemn a personage of joking? yet what else could this little scene mean? A blackbird was on the ground eating, when a dove flew down and hovered over him as though about to alight upon him. It evidently impressed the blackbird exactly as it did me, for he scrambled out from under, very hastily. But the dove had no intention of the sort; he came calmly down on one side.