CHAPTER V 



THE NATURE AND HABITS OF HIGH-BRED 

 PIGEONS 



I HAVE alluded to the extreme sensitive- 

 ness of the high-bred pigeon. It was my 

 pleasure to sit for hours at a time on a 

 camp stool in my pigeon yards and study the 

 faces and motions of my feathered beauties. I 

 found them capable of expressing all the emo- 

 tions of human beings; love, hatred, forgive- 

 ness, sympathy, horror, disdain, remorse, char- 

 ity, jealou'sy, avarice, vanity, tenderness, last- 

 ing affection, fickleness, domesticity, a love of 

 gadding and gossip, dignity and reticence, sar- 

 casm, and a love of playing jokes on one an- 

 other; — ^yes, and pigeons laugh at, and enjoy 

 iR good joke as much as anybody, — and all of 

 these emotions to an astonishing degree of de- 

 ;Velopment. 



They have one universal trait, however, — 

 cleanliness. They are the daintiest, cleanest of 

 God's creatures, constantly bathing and preen- 

 ing their feathers. 



