AN EASY START 25 
and they court its direct rays all the time. Build the flying 
pen, if you choose, up over the roof, so the birds may sun 
themselves there. If that side of the roof which faces the 
flying pen is too steep for the pigeons to get a foothold, nail 
footholds along the roof, same as carpenters use when they 
are shingling a roof, and the pigeons will rest on these to sun 
themselves. For the flying pen you want the ordinary 
poultry netting, either of one-inch or two-inch mesh. The 
‘two-inch mesh is almost invariably used by squab raisers, 
because it is very much cheaper than the one-inch mesh. 
The one-inch mesh is used only by squab raisers who are afraid 
that small birds (the English sparrows here in New England) 
will steal through the large meshes of the two-inch netting 
and eat the grain which you have bought for the pigeons. 
You can buy this wire netting in rolls of any width from one 
foot up to six feet. If your flying pen is twelve feet high, 
you should use rolls of the six-foot wire. If it is ten feet high, 
rolls which are five feet wide are what you want. If your 
flying pen is to be eight feet high, buy rolls which are four 
feet wide. In joining one width of wire netting to its neighbor, 
in constructing your flying pen, do not cut small pieces of tie 
wire and tie them together, for that takes too much time and 
is a bungling job, but buy a coil of No. 18 or 20 iron wire and 
weave this from one selvage to another of your wire netting 
in and out of the meshes, and you have the best joint. 
You can line the three walls of the interior of your squab 
house with nest boxes if you choose. The fourth wall is the 
one in which the window or windows are. On this fourth 
wall you should not have nest boxes, but perches. These 
perches, or roosts, should be tacked up about fifteen inches 
apart, so as to give the birds room without interfering with 
one another. The advantage of the V-shaped roost which we 
advise is that a bird perched on it cannot soil the bird under- 
neath. Do not buy the patent pigeon roosts which you see 
advertised, for a pigeon roosting on one will soil the pigeon 
roosting on the one immediately below. 
Please note particularly at this point the following terms 
which we use, and do not become confused. The nest box 
is something in which rests the nest bowl in which the nest 
is built. Do not speak or think of nests when you mean nest 
boxes. 
