NATURE AND HABITS 69 



under my notice, however, during my five years' 

 experience with pigeons. 



To illustrate the lasting affection of a pig- 

 eon, I will tell of a beautiful crested red runt I 

 once owned. His mate was a little black 

 homer, but, as I wished him mated to another 

 runt or a Maltese hen pigeon, I gladly seized 

 an opportunity to sell the homer one day. 



I kept him for two years and although I 

 placed him in a pen with beautiful young runts 

 and hens, he refused to take another mate. He 

 lived quietly in his nests and dignifiedly ate, 

 bathed, preened his feathers, sunned himself, 

 and took his jumping and flying exercises, but 

 refused to mate again. He was true to his first 

 love. 



I finally sold him to a pigeon breeder who se- 

 cretly laughed at my romance. Two years 

 later he wrote me with an apology that my 

 crested beauty had died as he had lived, a dig- 

 nified example of lasting affection. I never 

 heard whether or not his mate was equally as 

 true. 



It is next to impossible to distinguish the 

 male from the female as they fly about the 

 pens. The only really infallible way is to note 

 when the male drives the female to her nest, 

 or, if they are nesting, to note by the time of 



