236 ON THE REARING AND MANAGEMENT 



should be done by three or four o'clock in the morning ; 

 as they rise early. If you serve them much later, 

 they will keep hovering about home, and be prevented 

 taking their necessary exercise. 7 If fed ' the year 

 round, they will not breed near so well as if forced to 

 seek their own food ; for they pick up in the fields 

 what is pleasant and healthy to them ; and from the 

 beginning of the harvest to the end of seed-time they 

 find plenty.* They may be fed with tares, grain, or 

 seeds of any kind. 



" Be cautious of not letting the first flight fly to 

 increase the flock, but let every one of them be taken ; 

 as these will come in what is called benting-time, that 

 is, between seed-time and harvest. It is then that 

 pigeons are the scarcest ; and many of the young ones 

 would pine to death through weakness during that 

 season. 



" At the latter end of every flight, care should be 

 taken to destroy all those eggs which were not layed 

 in a proper time. The proper time for the spring- 

 flight is in April and May. After the harvest-flight, 

 cold weather begins to come on, which injures the old 

 pigeon much if she sits late; and the young will be 

 good for nothing if hatched.' 



"It is very necessary to observe cleanliness in 



