THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
61 
The proper food for pigeons, and the cheapest, is tares, peas, and 
small horse-bran, called pigeon-bran ; but they will eat any sort of 
grain. If at liberty, they will provide green food for themselves ; but 
if confined, they must be provided with such, and also abundance of 
gravel, with a little rape and canary seed occasionally. All thiDgs 
being arranged, the birds might be procured, and those should be 
young ones just fledged, but which have never essayed the wing ; 
otherwise they will be difficult to retain. May and August are the 
best seasoris to provide a stock of young birds (called by the trade 
squeakers). They begin to breed when six months old, and will, under 
good management, produce eight or ten couples a year. Wonderful 
accounts are published of the fecundity of pigeons, Stillingfleet 
asserting that 14,760 pigeons were produced in four years from a 
single pair. This may be rather an exaggerated estimate, but it is 
apparent that they multiply exceedingly. 
The pigeon is monogamous, that is, the male attaches himself to 
one female ; and the attachment is reciprocal — the fidelity of the dove 
to its mate being proverbial. In providing young ones it is not 
difficult, however, to match them according to the wish, provided 
they have not already formed their attachment. For this purpose 
they must be shut up together, or near and within reach of each 
other, and the courtship, carried on by cooing, brings about the 
connection in two or three days. The male is distinguished from 
the female bird by his superior size and forwardness of action. As 
the pigeon takes little care or precaution about her nest, it is neces- 
sary to make one for her, by placing a little soft hay in the hole. 
She lays two eggs only ; and having laid one, she rests a day, then 
deposits another, and proceeds to sit. 
The period of incubation is nineteen days from the first egg, and 
the labour of sitting is equally divided between the nock and hen, 
excepting that the hen always sits by night. Both the old birds are 
also equally assiduous in procuring food for and feeding the youn". 
Should no young pigeons be produced after the lapse of a day or 
two beyond the time of incubation, the eggs (addled or rotten) 
should be removed, and a squab taken from another pair and substi- 
tuted. The parents will rear this, and feed off their soft-meat upon 
it, which might otherwise stagnate in their crops and injure them. 
The soft-meat is a sort of pap secreted in the craw against the time 
it is required for nourishing the young. They have the power of 
throwing it up at will, and in feeding eject it from their own bills 
into those of the young ones. This kind of feeding continues about 
a week, after which they mix some harder food with it, and at length 
feed with whole grain. When the time approaches for the hen to 
lay again, the cock will not suffer her to rest, but drives her about 
until she settles on the nest, probably from an instinctive apprehen- 
sion that she might drop her egg in an improper place. At the end 
of a month the young ones are abandoned, and left to shift for 
themselves. The unerring sagacity which the pigeon displays in 
returning to its home from a considerable distance enables it to roam 
over a wide district in search of food ; and farmers consequently suffer 
greatly wherever dovecotes are established within reach of them. 
The powers of digestion of this bird are very great, and the con- 
Febmary. 
