PIOEONS. 



The bottom of the box or basket should be strewn with chaff, 

 to keep their flights and tails clean and dry. Carrying in the 

 hand cramps the birds, and causes diarrhoea ; crowding in 

 a bag or basket soils their tails and wings, while the pocket is 

 equally objectionable." 



In training the young pigeon to fly, care should be taken that 

 he is neither too full nor too empty. In the first case the weight 

 of his crop will make the bird heavy and lazy, and induce him, 

 perhaps, to settle at the least excuse ; and, in the second case, 

 he may be compelled to halt in his flight through sheer faint- 

 ness and exhaustion. The time most favoured by professional 

 flyers to fly their birds is in the case of a hen when she has 

 very young squabs at home, and with the cook when he is 

 " driving to nest." ' 



An able writer on this subject asserts that a high range of 

 hills, or a fog or mist, intervening between a pigeon and its 

 home, will so confuse the bird as to cause it to swerve from 

 its true course, so much even as to cause it to be lost. This, 

 however, is open to question, as London pigeons seldom or 

 never have a chance of a clear day for a fly. Besides, if the 

 birds were so dependent on then- visual organs, how is it that 

 night matches are so frequently and successfully flown ? 



Finally, " Great care is necessary to keep them in continual 

 practice, as also in good flying condition — strong, healthy, and 

 clean — -by means of good food and plenty of exercise ; otherwise 

 they may one day be missing, although they may have per- 

 formed the same distance often before." 



THE SPOBT OP PIGEON-rLYlNG ANCIENT AND MODEEN. 



In nothing does man display so much ingenuity as in pro- 

 viding himself with amusement, or, what is infinitely worse, 

 with an excuse for indulging in ihat pernicious passion, 

 gambling. He has called on nearly every animal on earth to 

 pay him toU in. this respect. Horses run races for him ; dogs 

 fight buUs, or bears, or badgers, or cats, or rats, or, lacking 

 other material, each other, for his delectation. From time 

 . immemorial donkeys have been pressed into the service, and 

 even the harmless pig must not be excluded because of the fun 

 that may be manufactured by greasing his tail, letting hiTn 

 loose, and then endeavouring to recapture him by that unhandy 

 appendage. Cock-fighting dates from the period when that 

 bird first became subject to man's dominion, and for want of 

 larger game, the Asiatics pit quails against each other. 



