191. Soft Meat— Straying. 



hatched in due time, from weakness, some 

 small assistance may be necessary to extri- 

 cate the bird from the shell ; or should they 

 be addled, it is generally held necessary 

 to provide the cock and hen with a borrowed 

 pair of young, or at least one to feed off 

 their soft meat, which else may stagnate in 

 their crops, and make them sick : but as 

 young ones for this purpose may not al- 

 ways be at hand, the exercise of flying, 

 fresh gravel, and those saline compositions 

 generally given to pigeons, are the proper 

 remedy. Addled, or rotten eggs, should 

 be immediately removed. 



Pigeons are extremely liable to be lost 

 by accident, and that which is unaccount- 

 able, although they will find their home 

 from such great distances, they often ne- 

 vertheless lose themselves in their own 

 neighbourhood. Should a cock or hen be 

 lost during incubation, the eggs will be 

 spoiled in twenty or thirty hours, and may 

 then be taken from the nest; but if the acci- 

 dent happen after hatching, the single pa- 

 rent left will feed the young. 



