PAIBIIla AND BKEeDDre. 



end disporting themselves according to their natures. Pre- 

 sently, however, they -will grow more sedate, and the hen wiU 

 set about egg-laying. First she lays one, which she keeps 

 faithful guard over, and next day she lays the other — always 

 two, never more nor less. 



At this period no husband is more faithful than the he- 

 pigeon. He feeds his hen while she is sitting; he fills his 

 crop with water, and from it she quenches her thirst. Towards 

 the middle of the day she goes abroad for necessary air and 

 exercise, while he contentedly cuddles the promising eggs be- 

 neath him. If, indeed, she should prove so callous a mother 

 as to think more of taking her pleasure than hatching her eggs, 

 father pigeon will meekly keep his seat, and comfort the eggs 

 till the shells burst and the chicks emerge. 



This win occur at the expiration of seventeen days from the 

 laying of the second egg. On this point, as well as on another 

 equally important, writers of pigeon books seem agreed to 

 countenance a delusion. One author, whose information in all 

 other particulars is tolerably correct, confidently asserts that 

 the hatching will take place on the twentieth day from the 

 laying of the second egg. Several others, with equal gravity, 

 tell us that exactly nineteen days must transpire between the 

 second laying and the birth, whereas the truth is — and every- 

 body that has kept as few as half-a-dozen pigeons must be 

 aware of it — that seuenteen days, within a few hours, is the 

 invariable time consumed by incubation. 



Again, trusting entirely to information and instruction de- 

 rived from writers whom, we presume, to be perfect masters of 

 the subject, the amateur is subject to great disappointment as 

 regards the number of hatchings he may reasonably expect in 

 the course of a year. He is told that by proper management " he 

 may raise as many as tweVoe broods in a single year." With all 

 due deference to those who make the assertion, I declare that 

 they are utterly mistaken. With proper management, if you 

 are very lucky, you may count on a hatching once in every six 

 weeks through the year, which will give you mne hatchings in 

 the twelve months. Even this, however, is the exception and 

 not the rule, and I should advise my readers to rest contented 

 if they are enabled to raise seven broods in the time. 



The writers in question would have been nearer truth if they 

 had declared that a hatching or two more than usual might be 

 obtained by imiproper management, that is, by stuffing the poor 

 birds during the chilly months with hemp-seed. They certainly 



