APPENDIX F 241 
Tumblers, they mount aloft and try which can tumble best; if they are 
Pouters, they emulate one the other’s puffings, tail-sweepings, circlets in 
the air, and wing-clappings; while the Fantails and Runts, and all those 
kinds which the French call 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 beara 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 favor, 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 
