THE PIGEON. 339 



How enticed KilVtt of music. 



While the beech woods were suffered to cover 

 large tracts of ground, these birds used to haunt 

 them in myriads, frequently extending above a 

 mile in length as they went out in a morning to 

 feed. In a state of domestication, these pigeons 

 are rendered of very material service. They fre- 

 quently breed eight or nine times in a year; and' 

 though only two eggs are laid at a time, their 

 increase is so rapid and prodigious, that at the 

 expiration of four years, the produce and de- 

 scendants of a single pair may amount to the 

 immense number of nearly fifteen thousand. 



The usual way to entice pigeons to remain at a 

 required spot, is to place what is called -A salt-eat 

 near them : this is composed of loam, old rub- 

 bish, and salt, and will so effectually answer the 

 purpose as to decoy even those belonging to 

 other places; it is on this account held illegal. 



Mr. John Lockman, in some reflections con- 

 cerning operas, prefixed to his musical drama of 

 Rosalinda, relates the following singular anec- 

 dote of the effect of music on a pigeon. This 

 person being at the house of Mr. Lee> a gentle- 

 man in Cheshire, and whose daughter was a fine 

 performer on the harpsichord, he observed a pi- 

 geon, which, whenever the young lady played 

 the song of" Speri si," in Handel's opera of Ad- 

 inetus, (and this only,) would descend from an- 

 adjacent dove-house, to the room window where 

 she sat, and listen to it apparently with the most 

 pleasing emotion*; and when the song was 



a IT o 

 m V m 



