BY WILLIAM G. BARTON. 67 



we behold a marvel which distinguishes pigeons from 

 other birds, and makes the old joke about pigeon's milk 

 no joke at all. As in mammals the lacteal glands secrete 

 milk at the birth of the young, so, at the hatching of the 

 young pigeons, or rather at the time when they should 

 hatch, the crops of both parents become thickened in 

 structure, and secrete a milky liquid, which coagulates or 

 curdles into something resembling curdled milk ; and the 

 young pigeon has his beak taken into the side of that of 

 his parent, and receives this curdy nourishment, ejected 

 by a sort of vomiting, against his wide under mandible. 

 For this, his appetite is excellent, and such remarkable 

 nutritive power does it possess, that squabs grow at a 

 wonderful rate. For a while they are covered closely by 

 the parents, and fed exclusively upon this " soft meat." 

 But in a few days, they are left uncovered longer and 

 longer, and the soft meat becomes mingled with half-di- 

 gested food ; and, after eight or ten days, it disappears 

 altogether, the food being then merely softened by macer- 

 ation in the crop of the parent. Later on, the old one, 

 after eating heartily, directly swallows a copious draught 

 of water and throws up his whole cropful into the maw of 

 the young one, who is now fully feathered, perhaps flying 

 from roof to roof, or running with outspread wings and a 

 whistling note in pursuit of his father, for the mother 

 has probably weaned him, and is devoting her whole atten- 

 tion to a second pair of eggs. 



Fanciers are in the habit of shifting eggs from one pair 

 to another to afford valuable young the benefit of good 

 nursing, and a large proportion of the highest bred birds 

 are reared by foster-parents of a common sort. Young 

 ones are sometimes given to several different pairs of 

 nurses in succession, so as to be afforded more than one 

 course of soft meat. Pigeons, like infants, may be brought 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XVI. 5 



