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PIGEONS. 



WILLIAM BROWN, who wrote those beautiful poems in the time of 

 Queen Elizabeth, entitled " Britannia's Pastorals," speaking of the 

 colour of a dove's neck, says no one can tell where the blue and 

 purple begins or the green ends. Nor is there a more graceful object 

 in creation than a beautiful dove. The horse is not more elegantly 

 formed in that fine sweep from head to back which makes Hogarth's 

 "line of beauty," or part of the letter S. Then no queen can move 

 more stately than the proud pigeon with his head thrown back and 

 his breast thrown forward, walking as if he were the lord of all 

 creation, and fully conscious of his own beauty. What an eye he 

 has, too; there never was a precious stone discovered in the world 

 to equal it : it has the liquid light of the diamond, the fiery blaze of 

 the ruby, and as for plumage, all the colours of the rainbow and all 

 the shades of all the flowers that ever blowed, may be found in the 

 dove's neck alone. What a lover of doves King Solomon must 

 have been, and how beautifully he alludes to them, and how his heart 

 rejoiced when he spoke of the voice of the turtle being heard again in 

 the land, and said of his lovely queen, " Thou art fair, my love, 

 thou hast dove's eyes," calling her his "dove in the clefts of the 

 rocks ;" then he speaks of "doves by the rivers of waters," and of his 

 " dove being the only one of her mother;" and it is pleasant to know 

 that there were pigeon -fanciers and a cooing of doves in the ancient 



