248 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 
they will come out in time if you give them time enough. Some pairs a. 
eccentric in their breeding. A certain pair of blue-barred birds may bree 
blue bars, whereas another pair of blue bars may breed one blue-barred squa 
and one blue-checkered squab, or any other color, and this variation ma 
be characteristic of this breeding for quite a period. It is impossible to pre- 
dict absolutely. 
Our white Tamers breed true to color. If you buy white Homers of us 
and breed them, the squabs will be white-feathered constantly and will not 
be blue barred or blue checkered, or any other color, except very rarely. 
SULPHUR OR IRON WATER. 
Parties write us from different sections of the country stating that the 
water where they live contains sulphur and others write that the water 
contains iron. For example, on the East coast of Florida about half-way 
down, all the water is strongly impregnated with sulphur. Breeders write 
us to know if this sulphur water is all right for pigeons.. To this we reply 
yes, when they get accustomed to it. If when you get your pigeons you 
find that this sulphur or iron water is affecting them, stop it and give the 
birds rain water. Rain water is absolutely pure water containing no mineral 
substances whatever, except the trifling amount of dust which may get in 
as the rain water runs down a roof before it gets into a rain-barrel or cistern. 
It is always safe to give this rain water to pigeons and you can introduce 
them to your sulphur or iron water as slowly as you please, by adding the 
sulphur or iron water to the rain water from day to day until the mixture 
is finally all sulphur or iron water. This will accustom the birds to the new 
water and before long you will have no need of using the rain water. 
PIGEONS THAT FLY AWAY. 
In every day’s mail, two or three letters and often more recount the story 
that the writers have accidentally left open the doors-of their squab houses 
or the doors of their flying pens; or that some other accident has happened 
so that some of the pigeons have flown away from the premises. Customers 
writing from as far as California tell us this and sometimes telegraph us and 
wish us to catch these birds as soon as they reappear at Melrose and send 
them back by express. The capacity for flight of a Homer does not seem 
to be a matter of well-defined knowledge, so we will say here that flights of 
over 500 miles for a homing pigeon are very rare. We have no cases on 
record of flights of homing: pigeons even from Ohio or Illinois to New York 
or Massachusetts. It is incredible that a homing pigeon would get back 
to its native place after a flight of two or three thousand miles. Birds 
which have been imported would make no attempt to fly back across the 
ocean or to the shipping point, so if you lose any of your pigeons out of 
your coop, the best you can do is to hope that they will return, as quite 
often they do. Recently we recall a case where a customer lost nine birds 
which flew away but five of them returned and went inside the house. 
Once again we repeat, hoping it will catch the eyes of so many who write 
us, that any Homers which you buy you must keep wired in all the time, 
otherwise they will fly away and leave you. By all the time we mean day 
after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, continually 
and perpetually, as long as the pigeons live. You cannot feed them for a 
month or so and then let them out and think that they will stay with you. 
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