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John
Audubon paints the Zenaida Dove
April 30,
1832 - Zenaida Dove painted on day Audubon left Indian
Key for Key West.
Zenaida
Dove
Above
image from Historical Museum of Southern
Florida
- Audubon images at the
Historical
Museum website were
produced from prints of an original Elephant Folio
belonging to the museum.
http://www.historical-museum.org/collect/audubon/audubon.htm)
See Audubon
House
Zenaida
Doves were painted on April 30. The pond-apple branch.
was painted by assistant Lehman.
"
The branch ( pond-apple or custard apple) on which I
presented these birds, belonged to a low shrub
abundant in the Keys where they are found. The flower
has a musty scent, and is of short duration"
Additional
portions of what Audubon writes in his Ornithological
Biography, Volume II, pages 354-358, and 359 are
provided below:
"The
impressions made on the mind in youth, are frequently
stronger than those at a more advanced period of life.
My father often told me, that when yet a child, my
first attempt at drawing was from a preserved specimen
of a dove, and many times repeated to me that birds of
this kind are remarkable for the gentleness of their
disposition, and the manner in which they prove their
mutual affection, and feed their offspring, was
undoubtedly intended to teach other beingings a lesson
of connubial and parental attachment. Be this as it
may, hypothesis or not, I have always been especially
fond of doves. . . ."
"The
Cooing of the Zenaida Dove is so peculiar, that one
who hears it for the first time naturally stops to
ask, "What bird is that?" A man who was once a pirate
assured me that several times, while at certain wells
dug in the burning shelly sands of a well known key,
which must here be nameless, the soft and melancholy
cry of the doves awoke in his breast feelings which
had long slumbered, melted his heart to repentance,
and caused him to linger at the spot in a state of
mind which he only who compares the wretchedness of
quilt within him with the happiness of former
innocence, can truly feel. He said he never left the
place without increased fears of futility, associated
as he was, although I believe with force, with a band
of the most desperate villains that ever annoyed the
navigations of the Florida coasts. So deeply moved was
he by the notes of any bird, and especially by those
of the dove, the only soothing sounds he ever heard
during his life of horrors, that through these
plaintive notes, and them alone, he was induced to
escape from his vessel, abandon his turbulent
companions, and return to a a family deploring his
absence. After paying a parting visit to those wells,
and listening once more to the cooing of the Zenaida
Dove, he poured out his soul in supplication for
mercy, and once more became what one has said to be
"the noblest work of God," an honest man. "
".
. . in less than an hour, with the assistance of
Captain, I shot nineteen individuals the internal and
external examinations of which enabled me to
understand something of their
structure.
The
flesh is excellent, and they are generally very fast.
They feed on grass seeds, the leaves of aromatic
plants, and various kinds of berries, not excepting
those of a tree which is extremely poisonous, -so much
so, that if the juice of it touch the skin of a man,
it destroys it like aquafortis. Yet the berries do not
injure the health of the birds, although the render
the flesh bitter and unpalatable for a time. For this
reason, the fishermen and wreckers are in the habit of
examining the crops of the doves previous to cooking
them. . . "
"This
species resorts to certain wells, which are said to
have been dug by pirates, at a remote period. There
the Zenaida Doves and other birds are sure to be seen
morning and evening. The loose sand thrown up about
these wells suits them well to dust in, and clean
their apparel."
Purple-flowered
Anona ( pond-apple or custard
apple)
This
plant is very abundant on many of the outer Keys of
the Florida. It grows among other shrubs, seldom
exceeding seven or eight feet in height, and more
frequently not more than four or five. The leaves are
obovate, rounded at the base, thick, glossy above,
downy beneath. The outer petals are larger, and not
unlike the divided shell of a hickory or pig nut; the
inner ovate, deep purple, with a white band at the
base. I did not see the fruit, which I am told is not
unpalatable when ripe, it being then about the size of
a common walnut, and of a black
colour."
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