DOVECOTES AND PIGEON LOFTS. 



43 



generally placed around the walls, and the spaces between them are usually 

 divided by upright divisions, placed not less than three feet apart, so as to form 

 pens or breeding-places for the different pairs of birds. The distance between the 

 shelves should not be less than eighteen inches, if Pouters are kept ; but for the 

 smaller varieties, a foot or fifteen inches will suffice. The ends of each pen should 

 be boarded, so that the centre only is open ; this arrangement offers several 

 advantages ; the bird in the nest, which may be formed at either end, sits concealed 

 and undisturbed, a state of things that greatly conduces to success in hatching ; 

 and by hanging a piece of wire or lath-work before the open centre, the pen is 

 capable of being closed, and the birds kept confined as long as may be desired. 



The arrangement of having darkened nesting-places at both ends of the pen is 

 very advantageous, as during the summer a pair of birds will often wish to go to 

 nest before the last' hatched young are able to fly or feed themselves. When this 

 is the case, a second nest-pan may be put into the other end of the pen, when the 

 birds will lay again, and thus rear a pair of young and sit at the same time. 

 Some Pouter fanciers have their pens fitted up with wire fronts, so that they serve 

 for penning up the birds separately during the winter. In this case each pen 

 should have its own water-supply and bos for food. 



When there is more room, and the birds are not so numerous, nest-boxes placed 

 on the floor of the loft will be found more advantageous than shelves. " I find by 

 experience," writes the author of the anonymous " Treatise on Domestic Pigeons," 

 "that nests made on the floor are much more convenient than otherwise, if the 



FIG. IX.- — SQUARE NESTING-UOX. 



loft will admit of it (this is particularly true with regard to Runts, Trumpeters, and 

 Fantails), for it prevents the young ones from falling out of their nests, which 

 sometimes breaks a leg, and very often lames them, and also gives them a chance 



