FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



377 



lehigh valley poultry association. 

 Editor Fanciers' Journal. 



Dear Sir: I inclose you clipping from our local paper, 

 with full list of officers, &c, &c. I take great pleasure in 

 assuring you that our Association, under the able manage- 

 ment of the very efficient officers, bids fair to prosper, and 

 accomplish its mission. It will supply fully a want long felt 

 in this locality. Any further information you may desire 

 for your valuable Journal will be cheerfully forwarded. 



Hoping to see our enterprise encouraged through your 

 columns, I remain respectfully yours, 



C. G. Trexler. 



Allen-town, Juue 2, 1874. 



Friend Wade : 



I have lost three or four fine Canaries lately, and desire to 

 ask through the Journal, if any one can tell me what ailed 

 them, and suggest a remedy. 



The birds were apparently well in the morning, but towards 

 noon (or some time during the day), they commenced moping. 

 The feathers were roughed up as in a case of cold. I treated 

 them for cold, giving bread and milk (boiled), in which I 

 put a little pepper pod and a little rhubarb. I also gave a 

 little rnaw seed. They did not get any better and I examined 

 them closely. The eyes were dull and heavy ; the body was 

 very poor and thin ; the breast bone nearly protruding 

 through the skin; the rump gland was slightly inflamed, 

 but not much. I then gave some hard-boiled egg and hemp 

 seed, but they continued to droop, and died the next day. 

 I had been feeding them on the best canary and summer rape 

 seed, and I cannot think that they suffered from want of 

 attention. Has any one had a like experience? L. H. 



PiqEOfJ DEp^J|VlEfIj. 



MOORE'S WORK ON PIGEONS. 



(Continued from page 361.) 

 a tolerable judgment whether a pigeon be cock or hen, for 

 in this point the best and oldest fanciers have been some- 

 times deceived ; for this purpose, therefore, take the follow- 

 ing rules : 



The hen has generally a shorter breastbone than the cock. 



Her vent, and the os sacrum, or bone, near the vent, is 

 more open than in the cock. 



Her head and cheeks are thinner, and she does not look 

 so bold as the cock. 



Her coo is shorter, and nothing near so loud and masculine 

 as the cock's ; besides, the cock frequentl}' makes a half- 

 round in his playing, which the hen does not, though a 

 merry rank hen will sometimes show and play almost like 

 a cock, and, if very salacious, will sometimes tread another 

 pigeon. 



And lastly, in young pigeons, that which squeaks longest 

 in the nest is generally reputed a hen. 



THE GENERATION OF PIGEONS. 



We now come to treat of the generation of this bird, that 

 is, the method it makes use of for propagation of its species; 

 and here I must acknowledge, myself obliged to Dr. Harvey 

 in his excellent treatise of the generation of animals. 



All animals therefore are distinguished into three sorts: 

 oviparous, or such as are formed from an egg ; viviparous, 

 or such as are produced from the uterus alive and in perfec- 

 tion ; and vermiparous, or such as are formed from a worm. 

 Though in fact the fcetus of all kinds of animals is pro- 

 duced from an egg ; the only reason therefore of this distinc- 

 tion is, that in some animals this egg (if I may be allowed 

 the phrase), is hatched, or brought to perfection in the 

 uterus ; whereas all of the feathered kind emit or lay this 

 egg, and produce their young from it by incubation. 



The pigeon, therefore, is an oviparous bird. I call it a 

 bird because all that belong to this genus feed their young 

 ones for some considerable time after they are hatched ; 

 whereas the young ones of the fowl kind will search for 

 their own food, and eat it themselves almost as soon as they 

 are discharged from the shell of that egg in which they were 

 produced. 



It will not here be amiss to give some account of the 

 production of the egg. Nature produces in the ovary, or 

 upper matrix of the hen or female bird, a great cluster of 

 small yolks, sticking together like a bunch of grapes,, which 

 from this similitude Dr. Harvey calls a vitellary, and adds 

 that in pigeons he has observed this cluster of eggs to be all 

 of a like magnitude, excepting only two which were larger 

 than the rest, and were now ready to descend into the lower 

 uterus or womb. 



The cock in the act of coition impregnates these eggs, and 

 by a wonderful operation of nature renders them prolific. 

 We shall not take upon us here to determine the method by 

 which this is performed, but shall content ourselves with 

 observing that there is a spot at each end of the egg, called 

 by the learned, chalazas, from the resemblance of a small 

 hailstone, and, vulgarly, the cock's treadles; these, by a 

 mistake, have been accounted to proceed from the emission 

 of the male, and to contain the plastic virtue of the foetus, 

 but experience has abundantly proved that these treadles 

 are to be found in all eggs, whether they are prolific and 

 fruitful or subventaneous and addle. 



It is the opinion of most, and that not without great 

 probability, that all the eggs a hen will ever lay are con- 

 tained in this vitellary or cluster, and that as soon as this 

 number is exhausted she will become effete or barren. 

 Some people therefore to abuse mankind, and vend a useless 

 bird, will oil the vent of a barren hen and force an egg into 

 it, to make you believe she is not effete; if you happen to 

 be thus imposed on, that you may not lose your seasons of 

 breeding, by keeping such a hen matched to a good cock, 

 we shall give a method to prove whether she be effete or 

 not. When the cock drives her hard to nest, give her a 

 pair of eggs, and let her hatch them and bring up; pursue 

 this method for two or three pair, if you value her, and if 

 she be not barren this, and cross-matching her, that ig, pair- 

 ing her to another cock, will effectually bring her to laying. 



Before we leave this head, we cannot omit mentioning 

 the dalliances made use of by this bird before coition, which 

 are in a manner endearing and peculiar only to them. And 

 here the cock when salacious will, by a voice at that time 

 peculiarly harmonious, and by several pretty, and as we may 

 ( To be continued.) 



