1 86 LIVING CREATURES. 



tip of bill to tip of tail. The mourning dove of our 

 orchards is twelve inches long. The common barn- 

 pigeons, and all the fancy birds pouters, carriers, runts, 

 barbs, fantails, tumblers, trumpeters, and so forth, in- 

 cluding a hundred and fifty varieties are derived di- 

 rectly from the wild rock-pigeon of Europe. 



Pigeons eat fruit, seeds, and grain. I have shot 

 them at their roosts in the far north, and found their 

 crops filled with large acorns. I wondered how they 

 could swallow, and much more how they could digest 

 the hard, bitter things. But the pigeon has a good 

 stomach. The crop is double, and softens the hard 

 shucks and kernels, after which the gizzard, with its 

 pair of ribbed mill-stones, grinds them well. 



The young pigeons are hatched both naked and 

 blind, and are carefully tended by the two parents. 

 You have heard, perhaps, of pigeons' milk. It is no 

 fiction. When there are young to be fed, the parents 

 have glands in their crops which secrete or separate 

 from the food a kind of milk ; and this is the nourish- 

 ment which the old birds pump into the mouths of 

 their tender squabs. Then the pigeon drinks, not like 

 a chicken, but like a horse, holding its bill in the 

 water till it has enough. 



The true carrier pigeon, which is now called by fan- 

 ciers the homing pigeon, is by far the most interest- 

 ing of the tame varieties. It may wear a variety of 

 colors, and is a most meek, modest, delicate looking 

 creature. Its instinct or love for home has been cul- 

 tivated for a great many centuries. It is trained by 

 ta'king it short, and then longer distances from home, 

 and allowing it to return on the wing. Even as far 



