BY WILLIAM G. BARTON. 69 



They are fond of salt, and gather around a bit of salt 

 fish, or peck day after day at the gravel where salt has 

 been shaken from the table cloth. 



Their fondness for hemp seed is like the greed of chil- 

 dren for candy ; and the wildest specimens may generally 

 be quickly tamed by it, and made to eat from the hand 

 and fly upon the head and shoulders of the feeder. 



They are as individual as men. I can recall the faces 

 and coos of certain pigeons, and have often recognized one 

 among a flock of thirty by the voice alone. Some are docile, 

 intelligent, less greedy; others pugnacious, stupid, and the 

 very embodiment of selfish gluttony. Some, easily tamed, 

 look trustingly at you ; others of the same variety, have 

 the eye of a wild Texas bull and refuse to come near, un- 

 less they are sure of hemp seed. 



There are very many obstacles to successful pigeon- 

 keeping. Hawks may catch them on the wing; cats 

 bring bloody havoc into the loft, or snap up your choicest 

 darling under your very nose ; rats may eat eggs and 

 young ; lice in five or six species infest them ; or disease 

 ravage like Asiatic cholera. Some refuse to lay, others 

 allow their young to starve. You may be surprised some 

 fine day to find that your best yellow fantail has fallen 

 down a chimney. Several pigeons have tumbled down 

 two different chimneys in my house, and I was once 

 obliged to rise at midnight to remove the fireboard in my 

 chamber and admit a tumbler in this Santa Glaus fashion, 

 a tumbler indeed. 



The homes of pigeons are of every kind, from the soap- 

 box of the ten year old boy, to the elaborately furnished, 

 heated, and daily swept apartments of the wealthy fancier. 

 The best lofts in England, Scotland, and the United States 

 would doubtless greatly surprise most of us by their 

 beauty, costliness, and adaptation. 



