208 HISTORY OF 



lays two white eggs, which most usually produce young ones of 

 different sexes. For the laying of each egg, it is necessary to 

 have a particular congress with the male ; and the egg is usually 

 deposited in the afternoon. When the eggs are thus laid, the 

 female, in the space of fifteen days, not including the three days 

 during which she is employed in laying, continues to hatch, re- 

 lieved at intervals by the male. The turns are usually regulated 

 with great exactness. From three or four o'clock in the even- 

 ing till nine the next day, the female continues to sit ; she is 

 then relieved by the male, who takes his place from ten till three, 

 while his mate is feeding abroad. In this manner they sit al- 

 ternately till the young are excluded. If, during this term, the 

 female delays to return at the expected time, the male follows, 

 and drives her to the nest ; and should he in his turn be dilatory, 

 she retaliates with equal severity. 



The young ones, when hatched, require no food for the three 

 first days, only wanting to be kept warm, which is an employ- 

 ment the female takes entirely upon herself. During this period, 

 she never stirs out, except for a few minutes to take a little 

 food. From this they are fed for eight or ten days with corn 

 or grain of different kinds, which the old ones gather in the 

 fields, and keep treasmed up in their crops, from whence they 

 throw it up again into the mouths of their young ones, who very 

 greedily demand it. 



As this method of feeding the young from the crop is diffe- 

 rent in birds of the pigeon-kind from all others, it demands a 

 more detailed explanation. Of all birds, for its size, the pigeon 

 has the largest crop, which is also made in a manner quite pe- 

 culiar to the kind. In two of these that were dissected by a 

 member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, it was found that 

 if the anatomist blew air into the wind-pipe, it distended the 

 crop or gullet to a prodigious size. This was the more extraor- 

 dinary, as there seemed to be no communication whatever be- 

 tween these two receptacles; as the conduit by which we 

 ■^breathe, as every one knows, leads to a very different receptacle 

 from that where we put our food. By what apertures the air 

 blown into the lungs of the pigeon makes its way into the crop, 

 is unknown; but nothing is more certain than that these birds 

 have a power of filling the crop with air ; and some of them, 

 which ire called croppers, distend it in such a manner, that the 



