236 BIRDS 



ing water should always be supplied in fountains, which 

 may readily be cleaned. This insures the purity of the 

 contents. A bath should be furnished daily in summer and 

 in mild days in winter. The receptacle should be wide and 

 shallow, for the birds will crowd it to its utmost capacity. 

 As soon as all have become properly soaked, and are 

 stretched out in the various ludicrous attitudes assumed in 

 drying, the bath should be removed, to prevent the dirty 

 water being drunk. 



Breeding 



Pigeons mate in pairs, and normally are strictly monog- 

 amous. Under the conditions imposed by close confine- 

 ment, however, the rule is often violated ; more often, per- 

 haps, than most breeders realize. Because of this fact it 

 has lately become the practice of the more advanced keep- 

 ers of pigeons to use the single-mating compartment system, 

 by which each pair is confined separately. Such a compart- 

 ment should not be less than three feet in each dimension, 

 even for the smaller breeds. The writer recently inspected 

 a well-known stud of Runts, kept on the single-mating plan. 

 Many of the birds had not been out of a small pen in sev- 

 eral years, yet all were in perfect condition. With more 

 active breeds, however, it is best to give each pair, on suc- 

 cessive days, the use of a common flying space. 



If the general practice, still in vogue with the great 

 majority, of placing all the breeding pairs together in the 

 loft, is to be followed, occasional mesalliances, accidental or 

 otherwise, are to be expected. These are more frequent at 

 the beginning of the season, when the birds naturally are in 

 an over-excited condition. Later on the danger of such 

 happenings is very much reduced. Properly mated pairs 

 will generally prove faithful, except in the case of illness of 



