PIGEONS ADMINISTER PAP 117 



have to sit quiet at night in any case. In the 

 Ostrich and Sand-Grouse the reverse is the case, 

 the hen sitting by day and the cock by night ; the 

 cock Ostrich, however, is said to show more solicitude 

 about the young than the hen, and in the case 

 of the Sand-Grouse it is the cock that waters the 

 chicks as above described. 



The feeding of the young of Pigeons is accom- 

 plished during the early infancy of the " squeakers," 

 to use the fanciers' appropriate technical term, by 

 a curd-like substance actually secreted from the 

 walls of the crop in both sexes ; and as this, except 

 for the absence of sugar, closely agrees with milk 

 in chemical composition and properties, the old 

 First of April expression " Pigeon's milfe " is some- 

 thing more than a mere joke. As the birds grow 

 older this is mixed with half-digested food, and 

 the secretion ceases altogether long before the birds 

 are reared. 



Pigeons, by the way, feed their young by taking 

 the bills of the young, which are soft and much 

 bulged at the base, into their own, and pumping 

 up the food into their mouths, whence the young 

 suck it down ; the method employed by Parrots 

 is similar, and so is that of the Ibises. Very awk- 

 ward indeed it looks, too, when the young Ibises ' 

 are fledged and still want feeding, for though the 

 bill of the nestling Ibis is not much longer than a 

 young Pigeon's, it is nearly full-length when the 

 bird leaves the nest, and it looks a most unpleasant 

 proceeding for fiie old bird to have a long bill 



