AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



89 



ficient size for a tumbler, or a small pigeon, whilst one of 

 double those dimensions will be required for a large runt. 

 A brick should always be placed in contiguity to the pan, 

 to enable the cock and hen to alight with greater safety 

 upon the eggs. 



Food and water should be given in such way, as to be 

 as little as possible contaminated with the excrement, or 

 any other impurity. Our pigeons having been con- 

 stantly attended, we have never found the need of any 

 other convenience than earthen pans; but there have been 

 ingenious inventions for this purpose, of which the meat- 

 box and water-bottle are specimens. The meat-box 

 is formed in the shape of a hopper, covered at the top to 

 keep clean the grain, which descends into a square shal- 

 low box. Some fence this with rails or holes on each side, 

 to keep the grains from being scattered over; others leave 

 it quite open, that the young pigeons may the more easily 

 find their food. 



The loater-bottle is a large glass-bottle, with a long 

 neck, holding from one to five gallons, its belly shaped 

 like an egg, that the pigeons may not light and dung upon 

 it. It is placed upon a stand, or three-footed stool, made 

 hollow above, to receive the belly of the bottle, and let the 

 mouth into a small pan beneath: the water will so gradu- 

 ally descend out of the mouth of the bottle as the pigeons 

 drink, and be sweet and clean, and always stop when the 

 surface reaches the mouth of the bottle. 



To match or pair a cock and hen, it is necessary to 

 shut them together, or near and within reach of each 

 other; and the connexion is generally formed in a day or 

 two. Various rules have been laid down, by which to 

 distinguish the cock from the hen pigeon; but the mascu- 

 line forwardness and action of the cock, is for the most 

 part distinguishable. 



Incubation. — The great increase of domestic pigeons 

 does not proceed from the number of eggs laid by them, 

 but from the frequency of their hatching. The hen lays 

 but two eggs and immediately proceeds to incubation. 

 Having laid her first egg, she rests one day, and, on the 

 next, lays her second egg. They usually stand over the 

 first egg, not sitting close until they have two, whence, 

 both the young are hatched nearly at the same time: 

 there are some exceptions, however, to this rule of nature, 

 and the hen having sat close at first, one young bird may 

 be hatched a day or two before the other. They often 

 spoil their first eggs from inexperience. 



The period of incubation is nineteen or twenty days 

 from laying the first egg, and seventeen or eighteen from 

 the last The labour of sitting is equally divided between 

 the cock and hen, excepting that the hen always sits by 

 night. She is relieved in the morning by the cock, which 



Z 



sits during the greater part of the day. The business of 

 feeding the young is also divided between the parents; 

 and the cock has often brought up the young, on the acci- 

 dental loss of his mate. Should not the eggs be hatched 

 in due time, from weakness, some small assistance may 

 be necessary to extricate the bird from the shell; or should 

 they be addled, it is generally held necessary to provide 

 the cock and hen with a borrowed pair of young, or at 

 least one to feed off their soft meat, which else may stag- 

 nate in their crops and make them sick: but as young 

 ones for this purpose may not always be at hand, the ex- 

 ercise of flying, fresh gravel, and those saline compositions 

 generally given to pigeons, are the proper remedy. Ad- 

 dled, or rotten eggs, should be immediately removed. 



Pigeons are extremely liable to be lost by accident, and 

 that which is unaccountable, although they will find their 

 home from such great distances, they nevertheless often 

 lose themselves in their own neighbourhood. Should a 

 cock or hen be lost during incubation, the eggs will be 

 spoiled in twenty or thirty hours, and may then be taken 

 from the nest; but if the accident happen after hatching, 

 the single parent left will feed the young. Should both 

 parents be lost, the young are very easily accustomed to 

 be fed by hand with small peas or tares, much preferable 

 to barley. We did not find any necessity of recourse to 

 the old housewife's instrument, the hollow reed. 



Soft meat is a sort of milky fluid or pap, secreted in 

 the craw of pigeons, by the wise providence of nature, 

 against the time when it will be wanted for the nourish- 

 ment of their young. In all probability, from instinct, 

 the pigeons eat a greater quantity at this time, and the 

 grain goes through a certain process in their crops, which, 

 produces the soft meat or pap in question. This they 

 have the power of throwing up at will; and, in feeding, 

 they inject it from their own bills into those of the young 

 ones, the bills of which are taken into their own. This 

 kind of feeding continues six or seven days, when the old 

 ones begin to mix some harder food with it, until at length 

 they feed with whole grain. When the time approaches 

 for the hen to lay, the cock is often seen driving her from 

 place to place, not suffering her to rest any where but in 

 her nest, apparently from an instinctive apprehension that 

 she may drop her egg in an improper place. 



Food. — Pigeons are entirely granivorous, and very de- 

 licate and cleanly in their diet; they will sometimes eat 

 green vegetables, in particular warm salads, and are ex- 

 tremely fond of seeds. Tares, and the smallest kind of 

 horse beans, commonly called pigeon beans, are both the 

 best and cheapest food for pigeons, but the pulse should 

 always be old, that is to say, of the previous year; as the 

 new will scour pigeons as well as any other kind of live 



