THE BARBARY PIGEON. 1 89 



observers who has confirmed the account given by Hunter. 

 " The rook," he says, " has a small pouch under the 

 tongue, in which it carries food to its young. It is prob- 

 able the use of the craw may be extended further than is 

 generally imagined, for, besides the common preparation 

 of the food to assist its digestion in the stomach, there are 

 some species that actually secrete a lacteal substance in 

 the breeding season, which, mixing with the half-digested 

 food, is ejected to feed and nourish the young. The 

 mamma? from which this milky liquor is produced, are 

 situated on each side of the upper part of the breast, 

 immediately under the craw. In the female turtle-dove 

 we have met with these glands tumid with milky secretion, 

 and we believe it common to both sexes of the dove genus."* 

 It is not surprising that so great an authority on the sub- 

 ject as Mr. Tegetmeier should have adverted to Shake- 

 speare's knowledge of these birds. At p. 133 of his work 

 upon Pigeons,-f he says : — " The Barb, or Barbary Pigeon, 

 is one of those varieties whose history can be traced back 

 for a considerable period : it was certainly well known in 

 England during the sixteenth century, for Shakespeare, 

 in As You Like It, which was entered at Stationers' Hall 

 in 1600, makes Rosalind, when disguised as a youth, say, 

 ' I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock- 

 pigeon over his hen.' — Act iv. Sc. I. Our intercourse with 



* " Ornithological Dictionary, " Preface, 1st edition. 



f "Pigeons: their Structure, Varieties, Habits, and Management." By W. P.. 

 Tegetmeier, F.Z.S. London, 1868. 



