National Standard Squab Book. 49 



cxaminiug the skin. Having found the bird which is at fault, kill it. This 

 point has come np continually in our correspondence. The erroneous be- 

 lief that white-feathered birds produce the whitest-skinned squabs seems 

 to be widespread and we are asked sometimes for a flock of breeders "all 

 •white." Our experience with all white Homers is that they have less 

 stamina than the colored ones. (This is also the experience of poultrymen 

 with ali white fowls; they are not hardy.) The marketmen will take two 

 or three pairs of dark-skinned squabs in a bunch without comment, but 

 an excess of dark ones will provoke a cut in price. Breeders who are ship- 

 ping only the undressed squabs should pluck feathers now and theu to 

 see just w"hat color of squabs they are getting. The dark-colored squabs 

 are .I'ust as good eating as the light-colored ones, but buyers for the hotels 

 and clubs, and those who visit the stalls generally, pick out the plump 

 white-skinned squabs in preference to the plump dark-skinned ones. As 

 a rule, squabs from Honiei pigeons are white-skinned — the dark-colored 

 squab is an exception. 



Many beginners wish to know if it will be all right for them to 'buy a 

 flock and keep it in one house for six months or a year, paying no atten- 

 tion to the mating of the young birds, but leaving that to themselves, so 

 as to get without much trouble a large flock before the killing of the 

 squabs for market begins. Certainly, you may do this, providing extra 

 nest-boxes from time to time until your squab house has been filled with 

 nests; then you will have to provide overflow quarters. We are asked if 

 the flock will not become weakened by inbreeding, that is, a brother bird 

 tnating up to a sister, by chance. According to the law of chances, such 

 matings would take place not very often. Pigeons in a wild state, on the 

 face of a cliff, or in an abandoned building, would mate by natural selec- 

 tion. The stronger bird gets the object of its affection, the weaker one is 

 killed off or gets a weaker mate, whose young are shorter-lived, so the in- 

 evitable result is more strength and larger size. Nature works slowly, if 

 surely. A lot of pigeons in one pen mating as they please when old enough 

 is the natural way, and if you follow this, you cannot go very far wrong. 

 We advocate matings by the breeder because it hurries Nature along the 

 path which makes most money for the breeder. We all know how Darwin 

 stadied natural and forced selection of pigeons. He took one pigeon with 

 a certain peculiarity, say a full breast, and mated it to another pigeon with 

 a full breast. The squabs from these birds, when grown, had breasts 

 fuller than their parents. Thea these in turn were mated to full-breasted 

 pigeons from other parents, and the grand-children had even larger 

 breasts. Darwin's ex:periments covered a period of over twenty years 

 and in this time h<? developed little faults and peculiarities to an amazing 

 degree. Every intelligent, careful pigeon tireeder is striving tiy his forced 

 matings to push along the path of progress the peculiarity in pigeons 

 which is his specialty. The breeder who selects most carefully and keeps 

 at it the longest wins over the others. By selecting from your best and 

 most prolific breeders the biggest and fattest squabs, keeping them for 



