CHAPTER III 



Food and Feeding 



Pigeons that have their liberty are privileged to seek 

 and select such food as they prefer. Freqiiently they 

 find nothing to their liking near home, and fly miles 

 away to feeding-places that furnish what suits their 

 taste. In the country they visit the newly-sown grain- 

 fields, and frequently become a pest to the farmer, or in 

 the fall find generous living among the ripened grain. 

 Those living near towns and cities find abundant pick- 

 ings in the streets and thrive and grow fat upon the 

 offal of horses scattered about. But pigeons in confine- 

 ment have no choice and must take what is provided 

 for their use or starve. Consequently it is the duty of 

 their keeper to provide food that shall be palatable and 

 acceptable to them. As all pigeons have not the same 

 tastes and what is meat for one in a sense is poison to 

 another, it is, therefore, necessary to furnish a variety, 

 so that all shall find what is to their liking and so be 

 satisfied and correspondingly contented. 



Among the varieties of grain produced in America 

 1 find that pigeons take kindly to Indian corn, wheat, 

 buckwheat, Canada peas, Hungarian grass-seed, millet, 

 and sometimes barley, but this only when it had been 

 before them a long time and they found that it was 

 edible, but they would leave it any time for good wheat 

 or corn. Tares, dari, and a small black bean, have fre- 

 quently been imported and used for pigeon food, but as 

 they come high, their use is not general, nor do I believe 

 them necessary considering that we have so many other 



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