g the
carvings of the Basilica, at the feet of the bronze horses, and under
the massive cornices of the New Procuratie, that the great Campanile
itself is hardly more essential to the character of the piazza than are
these delicate denizens of Saint Mark's.

In the structure of the ducal palace, the wants of the pigeons have been
taken into account, and near the two great wells which stand in the
inner courtyard little cups of Istrian stone have been let into the
pavement for the pigeons to drink from. On cold, frosty mornings you may
see them tapping disconsolately at the ice which covers their drinking
troughs, and may win their thanks by breaking it for them. Or if the
wind blows hard from the east, the pigeons sit in long rows under the
eaves of the Procuratie; their necks drawn into their shoulders, and the
neck feathers ruffled round their heads, till they have lost all shape,
and look like a row of slate-colored cannon-balls.

From Saint Mark's the pigeons have sent out colonies to the other
churches and campi of Venice. They have crossed the Grand Canal, and
roost and croon among the volutes of the Salute, or, in wild weather,
wheel high and airly above its domes. They have even found their way to
Malamocco and Mazzorbo; so that all Venice in the sea owns and protects
its sacred bird. But it is in Saint Mark's that the pigeons "most do
congregate;" and one can not enter the piazza, and stand for a moment at
the corner, without hearing the sudden rush of wings upon the air, and
seeing the white under-feathers of their pinions, as the doves strike
backward to check their flight, and flutter down at one's feet in
expectation of peas or grain. They are boundlessly greedy, and will
stuff themselves till they can hardly walk, and the little red feet
stagger under the loaded crop. They are not virtuous, but they are very
beautiful.

There is a certain fitness in the fact that the dove should be the
sacred bird of the sea city. Both English "dove" and Latin "columba"
mean the diver; and the dove uses the air much as the fish uses the sea,
it glides, it dives, it shoots through its airy ocean; it hovers against
the breeze, or presses its breast against the sirocco storm, as you may
see fish poised in their course against the stream; then with a sudden
turn it relaxes the strain and sweeps away down the wind. The dove is an
airy emblem of the sea upon which Venice and the Venetians live, but
more than that--the most pe