﻿PIGEON. 607 



Pigeons feldom or never lay more than two eggs at a time ; 

 they fit from fourteen to feventeen days before the young are 

 hatched ; and it is for the moft part obferved, that one proves a 

 male, the other a female *. 



Befides their being efteemed as a delicacy for the table, they 

 are valued on other accounts. Their dung is thought to be fo 

 good amendment for fome kinds of land, that it has been fetched 

 fixteen miles, and a load of coals has been given for a load of itf : 

 it is alio ufed for tanning the upper-leathers of fhoes, as well 

 as applied as a cataplafm to this day. Indeed formerly falt-petre 

 was collected from it. The greateft ufe of Pigeons is at Ifpahan 

 in Perfia, where there are recorded to be above three thoufand 

 Pigeon-houfes, and thefe kept by the 'Turks alone, as Cbriftians- 

 are not allowed to keep any J. Tavernier fays^ that their dung 

 is ufed to fmoke melons. The ufual way taken to entice Pigeons ■ 

 to remain where they are intended, is to place what is called a 

 Jalt-cat near them ; this is compofed of loam, old. rubbijh, and 

 fait, and will fo effectually anfwer the purpofe as to decoy them, 

 from other places, and is therefore held illegal. 



* Trifling as this number may appear, yet on fuppofition that we allow Pigeons • 

 to breed nine times in the year, the produce from a lingle pair, at the end of 

 four years, may amount to the number of 14,762. See Amcen. Ac. vol. ii. p. 

 32. — Stillingfleet's Tfafis, 75. — Linnaus makes the number amount to more than 

 18,000. 



t Plat. 



% Dr. Pocacke mentions the frequency of Pigeon-houfes in Egypt ; adding, that 

 the Pigeon-houfe is reckoned a great part of the eftate of the huibandman ; and 

 the common proverb in thofe parts is, that a man who has a Pigeon-houfe need 

 not be careful about the difpofal of his daughter. See Pococke's Travels, vol. i. 

 p. 210. pi. 8., 



We. 



