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Updated: May 10, 2025
They were very plentiful, and so were the turtle-doves, which used to light on the Basin bank, and pick up the grain scattered there from the boats and wagons. There were a good many things you could do with a gun: you could fire your ramrod out of it, and see it sail through the air; you could fill the muzzle up with water, on top of a charge, and send the water in a straight column at a fence.
But there were some things which they would have thought it not only wanton but wicked to kill, like turtle-doves, which they somehow believed were sacred, nor robins either, because robins were hallowed by poetry, and they kept about the house, and were almost tame, so that it seemed a shame to shoot them.
The bevies of chiffchaffs and willow wrens which came to the thickets in the furze, the chorus of thrushes and blackbirds, the chaffinches in the elms, the greenfinches in the hedges, wood-pigeons and turtle-doves in the copses, tree-pipits about the oaks in the cornfields; every bush, every tree, almost every clod, for the larks were so many, seemed to have its songster.
And here is a trampled mass of wreck and corruption for the girls to find, when they venture back from Rome, and complain how horrible war is for breaking down all their shrubs, and how cruel soldiers must be to kill and cook all their poor dear tame turtle-doves! Why not? Why should they lament over other things which they can just as little mend and which perhaps need no more mending?
Except to the mischievously inclined, they offer no inducement to commit violence. On landing, they flew to meet us, balancing themselves in the air in front, within easy reach of our hands. The other birds were crows, turtle-doves, fish-hawks, kingfishers, ibis nigra and ibis religiosa, flocks of whydah birds, geese, darters, paddy birds, kites, and eagles.
"My Valentine is the handsomest man in the world!" "Oh, you turtle-doves!" said Patty, laughing, as she ran down the steps to the waiting motor. Unless going with a chaperon, Patty was always accompanied by the maid, Louise, who either waited for her young mistress in the dressing-room or returned for her when the party was over.
This fruit resembles the true nutmeg, but smaller, and has neither smell nor taste. Besides hogs, guanas, and lizards, these islands have various birds, as parrots, parakeets, turtle-doves, and wild poultry. The sea affords limpits, muscles, and tortoises.
It was the end of March; the turtle-doves were all preparing for their flight to England; the pair that had built their nest under the musician's window had a home in some quiet woods in Surrey, where it was delightfully mild and pleasant even in winter, but they never were there in winter, although the wood had the name of Winterdown.
"You remember Mary Walker. Oh yes, you do; that pretty girl, but such a queer temper! And how she was engaged to marry Harry Jones, and said she wouldn't at the church-door, till her father threatened her with bread and water; and how they have been living ever since as happy as two turtle-doves down in Devonshire, till that scoundrel, Lieutenant Smith, went to Bideford!
They appeared calm and happy, and instinctively concealed their troubles. To see them so tranquil in the daytime, no one would have suspected the hallucinations that tortured them every night. They would have been taken for a couple blessed by heaven, and living in the enjoyment of full felicity. Grivet gallantly called them the "turtle-doves."
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