APPENDIX F 241 



Tumblers, they mount aloft and try which can tumble best; if they are 

 Pouters, they emulate one the other's puiSngs, tail-sweepings, circlets in 

 the air, and wing-clappings; while the Fantails and Runts, and all those 

 kinds which the French cM pigeons mondains, walk the ground with conscious 

 importance and grace. But this is their honeymoon — the time for the 

 frolics of giddy young people. The male is the first to become serious. He 

 foresees that " the Campbells are coming " better than his bride, and therefore 

 takes possession of some locker or box that seems an eligible tenement. If 

 it is quite empty and bare, he carries to it a few straws or light sticks; but 

 if the apartment has been already furnished for him, he does not at present 

 take much further trouble in that line. Here he settles himself, and begins 

 complaining. His appeal is sometimes answered by the lady affording him 

 her presence, sometimes not; in which case he does not pine in solitude very 

 long, but goes and searches out his careless helpmate, and with close pursuit 

 and a few sharp pecks if necessary, insists upon her attending to her business 

 at home. Like the good husband described in Fuller's Holy State, " his love 

 to his wife weakeneth not his ruling her, and his ruling lesseneth not his 

 loving her." And so the hen obeys, occasionally, however, giving some 

 trouble; but at last she feels that she must discontinue general visiting 

 and long excursions, and enters the modest establishment that has been 

 prepared for her performance of her maternal duties. A day or two after 

 she has signified her acceptance of the new home, an egg may be expected 

 to be found there. Over this she (mostly) stands sentinel till, after an 

 intervening day, a second egg is laid, and incubation really commences, 

 not hotly and energetically at first, as with hens, turkeys, and many other 

 birds, but gently and with increasing assiduity. And now the merits of 

 her mate grow apparent. He does not leave his lady to bear a solitary burden 

 of matrimonial care. He takes a share, though a minor one, of the task 

 of incubating; and he more than performs his half-share of the labor of 

 rearing the young. At about noon, sometimes earlier, the hens leave their 

 nests for air and exercise as well as food, and the cocks take their place upon 

 the eggs. If you enter a pigeon-loft at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, 

 you will find all the cock-birds sitting — a family arrangement that affords an 

 easy method of discovering which birds are paired with which. The ladies 

 are to be seen taking their respective turns in the same locations early in 

 the morning, in the evening, and all the night. The older a cock-pigeon 

 grows, the more fatherly does he become. So great is. his fondness for having 

 a rising family, that an experienced unmated cock-bird, if he can but induce 

 some flighty young hen to lay him a couple of eggs as a great fa^■or, will 

 almost entirely take the charge of hatching and rearing them himself. We 

 are possessed of an old Blue Antwerp. Carrier which by following this line 

 was, with but little assistance from any female, an excellent provider of pie 

 materials, till he succeeded in educating a hen Barb to be a steady wife and 

 mother. 



There was a good deal of observation put into pigeons by Mr. Dixon 

 before he expressed the above sentiments and what he saw you will see 

 when you watch your flock. 



HOW TO KEEP DOWN AN EXCESS OF COCKS. 



One of our customers in Connecticut of considerable experience and 

 original thought has tried out our Homers with birds from other sources, and 



