44 THE PRACTICAL PIGEON KEEPER. 



can peck for themselves : they cannot digest it ; and the soaking 

 is also needed to supply them with liquid before they can drink 

 properly. 



In the autumn early-hatched pigeons moult. A partial 

 moult begins as early even as April or May ; but about Sep- 

 tember the quills in the wings and tail are renewed, and the 

 moult of the whole plumage is gradually completed. It is to 

 be specially noticed, that at this first moult the original flight- 

 feathers (called by naturalists the primary quills) of the wing, 

 and which are ten in number, are replaced by others consider- 

 ably longer and broader. The tail feathers and secondary quills 

 also are usually replaced by larger ones, but the difference is 

 not so marked as in the primaries, which are therefore taken as 

 the usual test whether a bird is hatched the same year or the 

 one before. If any of the nestling feathers are left it is pre- 

 sumed the bird is a young one, the difference being very 

 marked ; and as many breeds " make up " a great deal with 

 age, this matter is of much importance perhaps most so in 

 Carriers, Barbs, and Antwerps. The flight feathers being 

 dropped gradually, it has been proposed that every pigeon 

 intended to be shown as a young one should have one of the 

 new flights stamped whilst some of the old ones are left, which 

 would then stamp it as genuine through that winter's show- 

 season, and tend to prevent the frauds which a few unscrupu- 

 lous exhibitors sometimes perpetrate. As a rule, the plan would 

 do so ; but there are some late-hatched birds which only moult 

 one or two flights, or even none at all, the year they are 

 hatched. Such will not moult any more 'till the following 

 autumn ; and if they are of a young-looking sort, which some 

 Carriers are, it has been objected that they might be stamped 

 as young ones the second year, the flights after one moult 

 never increasing in size. Whether owing to this danger or 

 not, the plan has never come into use for public exhibitions, 

 though employed by several private societies. Such exceptions 



