56 PIGEONS. 



handsome, and look very like white Owls in their sober circlings around the 

 pigeon-house. Apropos of the blue and the cloth-coloured birds, a friend asks, 

 ' Have you ever observed that if you pair a chestnut with a blue pigeon, the cock 

 being, say the chestnut, the chances are that the young cock is blue, and the hen 

 chestnut, and their offspring will come vice versa round again? — H. H. This is 

 a curious alternation. 



" Pouters have deservedly a bad character as nurses, and it is usual to put the 

 eggs of valuable birds under other pigeons to hatch and rear ; but otherwise they 

 are not deficient in natural powers, either of hardiness, flight, or memory. I 

 am well acquainted with the party to whom the following case happened : — 



" 'I once had a pair of pigeons of the Cropper kind given to me by a Mend, 

 I confined them about a month, with the view of breaking off the thoughts of 

 their former home ; but as soon as they had their liberty, they flew towards their 

 old habitation. The hen arrived immediately ; but, strange to say, her mate did 

 not till two years afterwards. No doubt he was trapped, and remained in con- 

 finement during the whole of that time. The distance to their old home was only 

 four miles and a half, but what seems curious is, that a pigeon should recollect 

 his home after two years' absence. My friend told me, that as soon as the Cropper 

 cock got back again, he began to play the same tricks as he used to do before he 

 was sent away to me.'- — J. W. 



"An objection to Pouters is, that the largest-cropped birds seldom have their 

 crops perfectly covered with feathers, but show a great deal of naked skin (from 

 their rubbing off) which leaves the beholder to imagine the beautiful plumage 

 which ought to be beheld. They are also apt to be gorged by over-feeding them- 

 selves ; in which case we have proved the benefit of the directions in the Treatise, 

 adding to them, however, a calomel and colocynth pill. ' When they have been 

 too long from grain, they will eat so much that they cannot digest it ; but it will 

 lie and corrupt in the crop, and kill the pigeon : if this, therefore, at any time 

 happens, take the following method : — - 



" ' Put them in a strait stocking, with their feet downward, stroking up the 

 crop, that the bag which contains the meat may not hang down ; then hang the 

 stocking upon a nail, keeping them in this manner till they have digested their 

 food, only not forgetting to give them now and then a little water, and it will 

 often cure them ; but when you take them out of the stocking, put them in an 

 open basket or coop, giving them but a little meat at a time, or else they will be 

 apt to gorge again.' 



" No space remains to give the technical points of the Pouters of the fancy, 

 which would best be done by liberal quotation from the Treatise. The author 

 quite sympathizes with the ' insanity ' of the ancient Piomans. He elaborately 

 describes five properties of the standard Pouter, and six rules for the manner in 

 which a Pouter should be pied, as 'published and in use among the columbarians ; ' 

 and sums up all philosophically thus : — 



" ' A Pouter that would answer to all these properties, might very justly be 



