CHAP, XV.] FARMING FOR LADIES. 307 



who are nicely curious in such matters, the 

 cost may be spared. 



The eggs are only two in number, of a 

 small elliptical form, and of pure white. 

 During incubation the male supplies the 

 female with food ; and both the male and 

 female afterwards feed their young brood for 

 some days after they are hatched from a 

 secretion of a whitish, milky, fluid nature, 

 extracted from their food and contained in 

 their crop, which they disgorge and inject 

 with their bills into those of their young, 

 until, by degrees, they give them grain : a 

 circumstance which has perhaps given rise 

 to the common solecism of " pigeons' milk." 



The process of hatching lasts from eighteen 

 to twenty days from the laying of the first 

 to the last egg, and neither during the pro- 

 cess, nor at its completion, should either the 

 old or young birds be meddled with, or the 

 eggs be handled. So tenderly attentive, in- 

 deed, are the old ones to their little brood, 

 that it requires no other care. They divide, 

 nearly equally, between each other, the te- 

 dious solicitude of incubation, each alternately 

 sitting upon the eggs by turns, regulated 



x2 



