2 
The Illustrated Book of Plgeons. 
promoting pigeon-breeding, which have their own private shows, at which only members can 
compete ; while the enthusiasm of poultry-fanciers has not been sufficient to maintain similar 
societies, except for a while in the solitary case of the Sebright Bantam, which is strictly 
analogous to the pigeon in the very points we are here considering. 
Such statements and comparisons as these may perhaps provoke ridicule, but if so, most 
unjustly ; for in their truth lies the secret of the engrossing interest of pigeon-breeding to those 
who follow it, and the reason why, if a man become fond of pigeons at all, he becomes so very fond 
of them. In them lie the reasons why such stupid prejudices as we just now mentioned are 
wearing away, and some of the busiest and best of men are becoming pigeon-fanciers, under the 
ever-increasing pressure of the battle of life in which they are engaged. They need — they crave — 
for something which shall afford them relief from their cares ; recreation for their wearied minds — 
for the mind, far more than the body, needs it in these days ; interest and enjoyment for their 
leisure hours ; and they find all in the pursuit we are considering, which answers most exactly in 
all these respects to the culture of flowers. Like the florist, the pigeon-fancier seeks to develop 
what he calls the “beauties” of his pets ; and artificial as his ideals are, they are scarcely, if at all, 
more so than those of the gardener. No one feels surprised that men should love flowers. We all 
understand, or rather feel that, next to the great fountain of mutual love and sympathy, they are 
God’s great healers for the overwrought mind; and when we hear some “man of might” relate 
how, in a time of terrible crisis and strain beneath which he well-nigh sank, he believes that, under 
God’s mercy, his brain was saved by his pelargoniums, we only smile with a smile that carries 
no ridicule upon it, as we remember what, at some other time, a rose or a dahlia has been to us. 
But natures are not all alike. Some of us cannot have flowers ; some of us want more return than 
flowers can give. We would have their beauty ; but we crave for an eye that can meet us, a pet 
that will welcome our approach, and show that our regular visit is joy to both. If only the 
beautiful flower it has cost us so much money, and thought, and time, to produce — if it could only 
turn round at our coming ; if it could acknowledge gratefully the refreshing shower we bestow 
upon it ; if it could meet glance with glance, to show us that it shared the joy of every meeting — if, 
we say, a flower could do all this, then it would answer, in nearly all respects, to a Fancy Pigeon. 
To the true fancier his pigeons are just such beautiful, rare — living flowers. 
What ! a smile again ! There is no need, for what we have been trying to convey has been 
felt by the holiest and the best of men ; and it will startle many to find how the very bird 
which forms our subject matter has been identified with even sacred history from the earliest 
times. It may surprise them to speak of Noah, though they will not forget the dove which 
returned to the ark ; but the fact so simply mentioned, that the patriarch “ put forth his hand, 
and took her," shows that it was a tame dove, although the unwillingness of nearly all pigeons to 
settle in a new home prevented her from finally returning to the vessel which could never have 
assumed that character to her.* We need not mention the place of the pigeon in sacrificial 
law; but we may again ask whether the exquisite lines in Psa. lxviii. 13 could have been written 
by any one who did not well love and study these beautiful birds, the more so when we compare 
them with Psa. lv. 6, in which the final clause about being “at rest” shows especially an 
intimate acquaintance with the strongest instinct of pigeon-nature. Indeed, from the time when 
* Wilkinson relates a curious legend of the Arabs respecting this bird. They say that “the first time it returned with the 
olive branch, but without any indication of the state of the earth itself ; but on its second visit to the earth the red appearance of 
its feet proved that the red mud on which it had walked was already freed from the waters ; and to record the event Noah prayed 
that the feet of these birds might for ever continue of that colour, which marks them to the present day.” We hardly need add 
that by “dove,” almost throughout Scripture, the Common Pigeon is meant. 
