QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 109 



tie with thread, or fasten with glue or a stamp ; or, you may 

 tie the tissue around one of the tail feathers. A thin alu- 

 minum tube containing the message may be fastened to a 

 leg, or to a tail feather. A trap window should be constructed 

 to time the arrival home of birds. This is an aperture about 

 six inches square closed by wires hanging from a piece of wood 

 at the top of the aperture and swinging inward, but held close 

 to the aperture by its own weight. The pigeon cannot fly 

 out but on its return home (if you have sprinkled grain on the 

 inside of the house, next the wires) the bird will push the wire 

 door and go in. It takes only a day or two for the pigeon to 

 become accustomed to the trap. If you connect the trap 

 with a simple make-and-break electric circuit, the pigeon on 

 its arrival home from its flight will ring a bell in any part of 

 your house or barn. When you have a record of the flyers, 

 you will have a guide for mating. The majority of fanciers 

 recommend a medium-sized Homer. A large hen should be 

 mated to a small cock, or a large cock to a small hen. What 

 is perhaps the best pigeon service in the world has been in use 

 for several years between Newton Roads, Auckland, New 

 Zealand, and the Great Barrier and Maro Tiro Islands, some 

 seventy-five miles distant. A boy of sixteen years worked 

 up the service and makes a large income from it. About 

 twenty messages an hour are carried back and forth by the 

 Homers. A year ago the government declared its intention 

 of laying a cable from Auckland to Great Barrier. The 

 project was abandoned, however, as the residents of the little 

 island decided that they were well pleased with the pigeons, 

 and that a cable would not be patronized. The government 

 offered to buy the whole pigeon outfit from the boy owner, 

 but he refused. There are from four hundred to five hundred 

 pairs of pigeons in the service. 



Question. In the case of young birds mated up for the 

 first time at five or six months of age, is it best to destroy the 

 first eggs, or let them go ahead and hatch in the regular way ? 

 Answer. Let them go ahead and hatch and learn to feed their 

 young. It will improve them for the next hatch. 



Question. Please describe the self-feeder more fully and 

 explain its operation. Answer. The hopper of the feeder 

 is V-shaped so that the grain will fall by its own weight to the 

 centre at the bottom, which is cut away as shown in the 



