THE COLUiMBINE, OR PIGEON GROUP. 129 



to ripen, and remain till tlie harvest is over. 

 In Scripture, the allusions to doves and 

 pigeons are so numerous as to evince that they 

 were equally common and equally valued in 

 ancient times.* In Egypt also, now, as an- 

 ciently, incredible numbers of these birds are 

 kept, and in the villages, the dwellings made 

 for them are at the least as conspicuous as 

 those which man builds for himself." We 

 cannot definitely ascertain whether the pigeon 

 was among the sacred birds of the ancient 

 Egyptians. 



Our account of the purpose for which 

 pigeons are kept in such vast numbers in 

 Persia recalls to mind a passage of some 

 difficulty in the Second Book of Kings, chap. 

 vi. 25, — " and the fourth part of a cab of 

 dove's dung (sold) for five pieces of silver." 

 Was it for this as a manure that such multi- 

 tudes of pigeons were annually kept in Syria 

 and Egypt ? and is its use as such, a remnant 

 of antique practice, still lingering in Persia ? 



* Jeremiah thus alhides to the wild rock-dove. " O ye that 

 dwell in Moab, leave the cities and dwell in the rock, and be like 

 the dove, that niaketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth. " 

 Jer. xlviii. 23. Isaiah takes the following simile from the 

 domestic or house-dove, of which great numbers were anciently 

 kept in Palestine. " Who are these that .ly as a chud, and 

 as the doves to their windows ? "—Isaiah Ix. 8. 



