The turtle-dove and the
ring-dove both have but one mate, and let no other come nigh; both
sexes co-operate in the process of incubation. It is difficult to
distinguish between the sexes except by an examination of their
interiors. Ring-doves are long-lived; cases have been known where such
birds were twenty-five years old, thirty years old, and in some
cases forty. As they grow old their claws increase in size, and
pigeon-fanciers cut the claws; as far as one can see, the birds suffer
no other perceptible disfigurement by their increase in age.
Turtle-doves and pigeons that are blinded by fanciers for use as
decoys, live for eight years. Partridges live for about fifteen years.
Ring-doves and turtle-doves always build their nests in the same place
year after year. The male, as a general rule, is more long-lived
than the female; but in the case of pigeons some assert that the
male dies before the female, taking their inference from the
statements of persons who keep decoy-birds in captivity. Some
declare that the male sparrow lives only a year, pointing to the
fact that early in spring the male sparrow has no black beard, but has
one later on, as though the blackbearded birds of the last year had
all died out; they also say that the females are the longer lived,
on the grounds that they are caught in amongst the young birds and
that their age is rendered manifest by the hardness about their beaks.
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