2 HABITS OF PIGEONS. [CHAP, i, 



and grain, or tender herbs. Force, vanity, aggression, 

 and greediness pertain to the one class ; grace, agility, 

 sentiment, devotion, and temperance to the other. 

 The gallinaceous birds seem to be representatives of 

 the fervid and selfish passions of the East ; the Doves 

 to have been created as types almost of Christian 

 virtue. To suffer the onslaughts of the cruel ; to bear, 

 and, if possible, to escape, but neither to attack nor to 

 revenge; to adhere to chastity, even when gratifying 

 their natural affections ; to submit to an equal division 

 of the labour of tending the helpless young ; to prefer 

 a settled home to indulgence in capricious wanderings 

 these are a few out of the many attributes which 

 have conciliated towards them the approving regard of 

 mankind, and even perhaps caused them to be honoured 

 by being mysteriously connected with some of the most 

 meaning ceremonies and important events that are 

 mentioned in sacred history. 



And yet, at the present day, a love for Pigeons is 

 considered rather low, a taste scarcely the thing to be 

 indulged in, a study of a department of nature from 

 which little can be learned, and, as a hobby, decidedly 

 out of fashion. But any pursuit may be vulgarized and 

 made the means of evil, by being taken up from base 

 motives and in an unworthy manner ; and, on the other 

 hand, even an indulgence in the Pigeon fancy may be 

 so regulated and conducted as to afford interest and 

 instruction to the young, and a healthy relaxation and 

 matter for speculative inquiry to their seniors. 



What boy, whose parents permitted him to keep 

 ever so few pairs of Pigeons, forgets in after days the 

 pleasing anxieties of which they were the source the 

 occupation for spare half-hours which they never failed 



