PIGEON PABASIIBS 



in the nests, and dnsted among the feathers of the old birds, 

 is the best plan I know of. As a preventive means I would 

 advise cleanliness ; stop all cracks and chinks ; let the wood- 

 work be planed and painted, and do not give the pigeons hay 

 for nests. Heath and birch-twigs are the best. Washing the 

 walls, painting the woodwork so as to stop all cracks, however 

 minute, and perhaps the addition of powdered sulphnr in the 

 lime-wash, may be a good precaution." 



Ticks, to my thinking, are even more objectionable than mites, 

 although they are not nearly so plentiful. They grow some- 

 times as large as tares, so that the bird's depth of feather is 

 insufficient to hide them. They are very quick in their move- 

 ments. They generally infest the head and back of the pigeon. 

 Cleanliness and powdered sulphur are the only effective weapons 

 against them. 



Feather-lice frequently swarm beneath the vanes of the 

 pigeon's feathers. They, however, do not seem to cause the 

 bird much inconvenience. Indeed, the theory has been ven- 

 tured, that, so far from being inimical to the bird's well-doing, 

 they are positive conducers to its comfort. " Their food being 

 the down at the quiU end of the feathers," say the advocates of 

 this doctrine, "it seems almost as if they were intended to 

 reduce the warmth of the bird's covering in summer ; for their 

 numbers must be very much decreased at moulting-time by the 

 quantity cast off with the old feathers, and not until spring can 

 they increase sufficiently to thin the warm under-covering of 

 down which in summer is not so necessary for the pigeons as in 

 the cold months of winter." It is pretty well ascertained, how- 

 ever, that their numbers may at least be thinned by a strict 

 observance of cleanliness ; and as cleanliness was never yet 

 proved to be erroneous, the theory is in a slight degree shaken 

 by that fact. 



DISEASES or PIGEONS. 



If properly fed and cleansed and cared for, few birds are less 

 liable to disease thun the pigeon. 



Their chief ailment is " canker," a very ugly disease, attack- 

 ing the head, and causing cheesy-looking and evil-smelHng 

 swellings. The disease is attributed to various causes, to im- 

 pure water, to drinking from a tin vessel, to a bad state of 

 blood, and sometimes to the attacks of mites. An excess of 

 food of a fatty nature will be likely to produce canker. The 

 cure is spare diet, plenty of exercise after the excrescence has 



