34:.— ^Your pigeons being thus matched^ turn them loose into your loft, 

 and let them chose what nest they best like, or if you have a mind to fix 

 them to any particular nest, you may effect it in this manner. — Make a 

 lath machine, the length of your breeding places, closed in at top and 

 bottom with boards, and projecting out as far as your loft will conveniently 

 ^llow ; one of your top boards must lift up with hinges, in order to put 

 in meat and water, this you may hang before any hole, and put your 

 pigeons in it, and when they have been five or six days used to the nest, 

 take it away, in the night is the best time, and they will keep to that 

 nest. 



35. — The same method may be used, and is very good, to prevent your 

 strain being adulterated by a false tread, which an over salacious hen will 

 often submit to. Therefore keep them up by this method till the hen has 

 laid both her eggs, then take it away and give them their liberty, till the 

 hen has fed off her soft meat, then the hen will begin to be salacious 

 again, therefore at that time confine them as before, and you are sure to 

 keep your strain pure and entire. This method is somewhat troublesome, 

 and therefore not worth using but for your best pigeons ; as for those who 

 breed for the dish, 'tis no matter whether they are bastardized or not. 



TO KNOW A COCK FROM AN HEN. 



36. — Having thus informed you how to mate or pair your pigeons, I 

 shall next give you some instructions how to form a tolerable judgment 

 whether a pigeon be cock oj hen, for in this point the best and oldest 

 Fanciers have been sometimes deceived ; for this purpose, therefore, take 

 the following rules. 



37. — -The hen has generally a shorter breast=bone than the cock. 



38. — Her vent, and the os sacrum, or bone near the vent, is more open 

 than in the cock, 



39 . — Her head and cheeks are thinner, and she does not look so bold 

 as the cock. 



40.— Her coo is shorter, and nothing near so loud and masculine as the 

 cock's, besides the cock frequently 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. 



41o — And lastly, in young pigeons, that which squeaks longest in the 

 nest, is generally reputed a hen. 



41. — (Matob, p. 26.) Where there are two in a nest, the largest is thought to be a 

 cock. 



(Beent.) — It is rather difficult to determine, but the larger of the two in the nest is 

 generally considered to be the cock, and that which squeaks longest, the hen ; but it is 

 a popular error to suppose that every nest contains a pair, for they are quite as often 

 two of the same sex as one of each ; those that are accustomed to Pigeons become so 

 well acquainted with their faces that they can almost to a certainty. tell the sex at a 

 glance ; the cock has a bolder look^ the bill stouter at the base^ and the cheeks fuller ; 



