•416 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[November, 
HgaBs 
[COPYRIGHT SECURED.] 
P I G E O N.— Drawn from Life by H. W. Herrick. 
■Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
lished Horticultural Societies should judge the 
specimens by quality rather than by quantity. 
Some of the awards at the late exhibition of the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society struck us 
as being rather strangely made. This Society 
has a position so well established that it can 
afford to break away from the custom of con¬ 
sidering the largest as always the best, and 
establish points of excellence for each variety 
which should guide in awarding the premiums. 
All who know anything about raising vegetables 
are aware that by continued selection the size 
of most varieties can be materially increased ; 
they should also know that this increase in size 
is often at the expense of quality. Take the 
Autumnal Marrow Squash as an example. We 
find this twice the size it was when first intro¬ 
duced, and greatly inferior in quality. So the 
awards to overgrown potatoes are, in our view, 
all wrong. The specimens of Early Rose which 
took the first prize at the exhibition referred to 
were enormous and beautiful to look upon, but 
altogether too large to cook properly. Premi¬ 
ums should be awarded to just such specimens 
as it is desirable should be raised, and those 
so overgrown that they lose quality, or are 
too large for table use, should be disqualified. 
The Wild Pigeon. 
The beautiful bird which the engraving so well 
represents is a familiar visitant of almost every 
part of the country from the Gulf of Mexico to 
Hudson’s Bay, and from the Great Plains to the 
Atlantic Ocean. The Wild Pigeon is remark¬ 
able for the migrations which it accomplishes 
with astonishing ease and rapidity. The natural 
flight of pigeons is said to be a mile a minute, 
and their feeding-grounds are often hundreds of 
miles from their roosting-places, to which they 
return at night. The number of these birds is 
hardly conceivable. In going to and from the 
feeding-grounds the birds often darken the air 
for hours, morning and evening—while at their 
roosting-places the trees are loaded to such an 
extent that great limbs, and even trees, often give 
way and come crashing to the ground with tlieir 
living burden. In this way forests of many 
miles in extent are filled with pigeons for several 
days, or as long as feed is abundant in the 
vicinity. Such scenes occur of late less fre¬ 
quently than in former years, yet every year 
the clouds of pigeons settle somewhere and in 
larger or smaller flocks. The advance of civi¬ 
lization disturbs them, but with their wonder¬ 
ful powers of flight they easily accommodate 
themselves to the changes which the settlement 
of the country brings about. They migrate 
solely in search of food, feeding upon the beech 
mast, upon the wild rice and nuts of the West, 
the rice of the South, or the barley, buckwheat, 
wild grains, acorns, nuts, and berries, of Canada, 
or wherever they can find them. They scatter 
themselves over the country in pairs in the 
spring, and breed in most or all of the Northern 
States, when numerous filling the trees with 
their nests. The cock pigeon is described as 
“ seventeen inches long, and the wing eight and 
a half inches; the upper parts blue, under parts 
purplish-red, passing into whitish behind, and 
the sides and back of the neck a glossy golden 
violet.” The female is smaller and much duller 
in color of plumage. The head of the Wild 
Pigeon is small, the bones delicate, but hard and 
strong, and the muscles of the breast large and 
powerful. The flesh is rich and excellent, and 
is highly esteemed as food. In sections where 
pigeous are moderately abundant, they are 
trapped in nets, which are thrown over them by 
means of ropes and poles which are managed by 
persons lying concealed, while they are attract¬ 
ed to a particular spot by grain thrown for them. 
