54 STOCKING THE LOFT. [CHAP. u. 



the end. Some birds, as soon as they regain their 

 accustomed powers of flight, start off, taking away per- 

 haps a companion or two with them, in search of their 

 old haunts. And besides this, a clipped-winged Pigeon 

 is as sad a sight as a blind greyhound or a lame race- 

 horse. The poor thing cannot get up and down to its 

 locker, without hopping like a Sparrow when it should 

 glide like a Hawk. It tumbles in dirt while it should 

 be mounting on air. 



If the dealer could warrant that his adult birds of 

 choice breeds had never been flown, but had been kept 

 incarcerated from the moment of their sprawling out of 

 the divided egg-shell a warrant which he can but 

 rarely give with satisfaction to his own mind then the 

 purchaser might safely keep them at home just for a 

 few days, and afterwards let them out with but little 

 fear of their leaving him. But it is a rare case to be 

 able to place any such dependence on new-bought 

 Pigeons. Whether they go back to their old home, or 

 whether they simply get strayed and lost, the disap- 

 pointment is the same to him who wishes to retain 

 them. The only safe way to stock an unpeopled loft, 

 in which the birds are intended to be allowed any de- 

 gree of liberty in the open air, is to procure, by order- 

 ing them beforehand, several pairs of the young birds 

 of the sorts required, as soon as they are able to peck 

 for themselves, i. e., at about five weeks old. Such 

 colonists as these will take to their settlement without 

 giving much trouble. The only fear of losing them is 

 from their being decoyed away by older birds in the 

 neighbourhood before they have fairly mated, and 

 have become fully conscious that an independent home 

 of their own is desirable. 



