26 
The Illustrated Book of Plgeons. 
the floor, this can generally be done by nailing all round a strip of zinc or tin about twelve inches 
wide, shaped like an L, so as to cover six inches of wall and six inches of floor. A trained cat is 
also of service ; but the training must be so constant and watchful befo~2 pussy can be trusted not 
to do a little poaching on her own account, that very few fanciers can boast the luxury. Cats, 
however, are kept out with comparative ease, and none but pigeons allowed to fly should be in any 
danger on that score. 
Every fancier should have in his loft one or more “sick pens,” or cages in which ailing birds 
can be confined at once on their ailment being discovered. No sooner does a bird appear ill than 
the others will begin persecuting and pecking it — especially if Carriers are kept, which are the most 
spiteful and vicious of all pigeons — so that if hospital pens are provided it will be the means of 
saving many lives. These pens should be in sight of the other birds, and not away from them ; 
for a bird thus confined in sight of his companions will keep up his spirits much better and make 
a quicker recovery than if shut up alone. Such wire pens as are shown at the back of the loft in 
Fig. 3 will answer this purpose very well ; and as the pens in which diseased pigeons are confined 
are not, with the sole exception of the mysterious new disease called small-pox, liable to become 
infected and communicate disease to others, they may be used as matching pens, or for other 
purposes if required. 
And this mention of sick pigeons leads us to remark finally upon a point, the importance of 
which we have become more and more convinced of every year. We have described the best 
arrangements known to us for the interior of a loft (with the exception of some special breeds to be 
separately treated of in their place), but, however perfect these may be, they will not keep away 
disease if the birds be at all overcrowded. Few can speak more feelingly than ourselves upon this 
point, or have a right to speak with more authority. We have been compelled to keep more 
pigeons than our judgment would approve of, for greater or less periods, during many years ; and 
when we state that at such times, if prolonged for more than a few weeks, all that care and 
experience could do have not been able to avert the penalty, and that we have ere now lost, in a 
wonderfully short space of time, hundreds of pounds’ worth of valuable birds, we trust no further 
testimony will be needed. And especially, unless the birds are allowed to fly at large, let the 
amateur strain every point to provide, if possible, a good flight or aviary. Pigeons must have some 
fair amount of flying exercise to keep them in really good health and condition, be it in aviary or at 
large. The inside space is not half so important as this ; healthy birds do not require much room 
inside the loft if they have plenty of exercise outside, as witness the hardy dovecote birds, which 
have no shelter beyond their own breeding-place in the dovecote. But open-air exercise is vitally 
important to enable the birds to get appetite and properly digest their food, and even to properly 
disgorge it for their young ones. This last assertion may surprise many ; but we repeat, most 
emphatically, that want of flying space is the chief cause of young pigeons being badly fed and 
needing artificial aid. Again, it is impossible to keep birds with thfe same gloss and tightness of 
feather in a small overcrowded space as when they have ample room for flying exercise, which will 
also be found to cause much fewer barren eggs, and to give the young birds a far more bold and 
stately appearance or “ carriage,” especially in the case of Carriers and Dragoons. 
We should not have said so much upon this point, had wc not observed that, with the increase 
of the pigeon fancy, there had been far more cases of disease within the last fifteen years than were 
ever known before; and some of these, diseases which were previously unknown altogether. In nine 
cases out of ten we have fcnozuu these last to have occurred in lofts where the flying space was 
too confined, while we very rarely find disease amongst birds which are allowed to fly at large. 
At no very distant period, in fact, fanciers, both in town and country, used to allow all their birds 
