104 PiGEOXS AND Ali, AbOUT ThEM. 



clear ego;s my plan has been to. give two or three doses 

 of Epsom Salts, and I have never had birds sick. Once, 

 however, the birds have started to feed it is most essen- 

 tial for their welfare that thej^ should go on. I am firmlj' 

 con\-inced that the soft food .grows verj' fast once its 

 manufacturing apparatus, so to speak, is brought into 

 operation; and it is much more likelj' for a bird to go 

 wrong, and very wrong, too, if it has fed for a couple 

 of days, and then, owing to the death of its progeny, 

 it is unable to go on. In many such cases the digestive 

 organs seem to be completely upset, and it is advisable 

 to take such birds out of the breeding loft, shut up their 

 boxes and turn them into another house. I do not 

 believe in putting them into pens, because the exercise 

 they get is beneficial to them. They should be given 

 a pinch of Epsom Salts, morning and night, fed very 

 sparingly, and a little Condy's Fluid should be put into 

 their drinking water each day. After four or five 

 da.N's of such treatment they will, generally speaking, be 

 (|uite themselves again. Then for three or four days 

 they may be given Dixons' Tonic Pills, and by this 

 time they can be returned to their breeding quarters. 



.\XXO DOMINI 1786. 



This question of Pigeons' milk has been an interest- 

 ing one for many years; in fact, one might say ages, and 

 some of our greatest scientists have spent much time 

 and thought in research concerninp- it. ^lorc than 

 one hundred 5'ears ago, in 178(), one, John Hunter, 

 published a paper on the subject with the title of " On 

 a Secretion in the Crop of Breeding Pigeons, for the 

 Nourishment of their Young." In this paper Hunter 

 demonstrated that a substance in the form of a little 

 pellet, and resembling m appearance the curd of milk, 

 is formed in the lateral pouches of the crop of both cock 

 and hen, for some two days before, and seven to nine 

 days after the hatching of the eggs, and that the yoimg 

 scjuabs are fed exclusively upon this for two or three 

 days, after which other substances are introduced into 

 the dietary by the parents. In all his investigations 

 amongst birds he could not find instances of any birds 

 except Pigeons, which fed their 3-oung in this manner. 



