PIGEON-STEALERS. 



107 



This promiscuous interchange of pigeons, is 

 perfectly understood, and approved of by all the 

 neighbourhood ; and it never seems to be detri- 

 mental to any particular cot. In days gone by, 

 dove-cots were in high repute ; and provided only, 

 that you kept them clean, and managed to shut out 

 effectually, the Hanoverian rat, (no easy achieve- 

 ment) you never failed to have a good supply 

 of dove-cot pigeons. 



There exists a law, now considered obsolete; and 

 a most salutary law it was ; namely, that if any 

 body should kill old dove-cot pigeons, (no matter 

 where) he was fined one guinea for every old bird 

 wilfully destroyed. 



The lord of the manor himself, could not 

 transgress with impunity, this useful law. Nay, 

 in order to encourage fair play, it was deemed fit, by 

 common consent, to prohibit the placing of what 

 was called a salt-cat, in any dove-cot. Now, a salt- 

 cat was understood to be a composition of barley- 

 meal, salt, and corn ; forming a most tempting 

 repast to the whole race of dove-cot pigeons. 



When I was a boy, I remember well to have 

 heard my father say, that the owner of a dove-cot 

 was not allowed to white-wash the outside of it, 

 lest too great a number of other people's pigeons, 

 might forsake their own ordinary cot, and be 



