108 Pigeons and All About Thej:. 



natural forces of a young Pigeon are not so great as 

 those of other birds. Nature, undoubtedly, work- 

 ing as she does, in perfect harmony with all her sur- 

 roundings, has provided this peculiar food for the 

 young Pigeon because it is obvious that the whole 

 grain would be absolutely useless in the feeding of 

 such a weakling as a j'oung squab, from the fact that 

 its gizzard membrane is so thin and friable that the 

 microscopist has difficulty in its preparation for the 

 purposes of research, and it is so frail as most cer- 

 tainly not to be equal to crushing whole grain. 



A \oung squab might, it is true, be sustained upon 

 grain crushed for it by its parents, for the pancreas of 

 the young Pigeon is quite equal to the task of digest- 

 ing starch}- matter, as is the case with the young of the 

 mammal family. Indeed, as I have shown, after the 

 first two days a few crushed grains are actually snp- 

 l)lied by the parent birds with the soft food. Never- 

 theless, the fact remains that the bulk of thv. diet first 

 supplied to a young Pigeon in the early stages of its 

 existence is composed of fatty and albuminous 

 matter. 



THE GROWTH OF SQU-IBS. 



Those acquainted with the growth of young 

 Pigeons know that a squab grows faster than almost 

 anything else one comes in contact with. In fact, it is 

 not too much to say that the manner in which a young 

 Pigeon grows is simply astounding. During the first 

 twelve days of its life its growth is phenomenal in its 

 rapidit}'. After that stage the growth is slower. 

 Seeing that the Pigeons milk almost, if not quite, ceases 

 about the ninth day, it is only reasonable to suppose 

 that the marvellous development of a young Pigeon 

 is, indeed, due entirely to its fatty and albmninous 

 diet. The highly nutritive character of the milk 

 diet is such that it lasts for a day or two after the milk 

 has been stopried, and as soon as the system has ex- 

 hausted the last of the milk feeding, the mushroom 

 growth, so to speak, is arrested, and the daily growth 

 of the nestling becomes much slower. 



