THE DOVE-COT. 
43 
ever, they will provide for themselves, and will amply repay the keeper for 
Ins trouble. 
Whatever number of broods a pair of pigeons may bring up in a year, the 
hen never lays but two eggs before she sits. She then sits eighteen days, 
or twenty-one days from the laying of the first egg. Both the cock and the 
hen assist in the hatching: the hen usually sits from the afternoon till the 
following morning; the cock then takes her place, and sits while she goes 
out to feed and exercise herself, and generally keeps on the nest the greater 
part of the day. The young ones are usually hatched during the daytime. 
When hatched, the young only require warmth for the first three days, a 
task which the female takes entirely upon herself; and she never leaves 
them except for a few minutes at a time, to take a little food. After this, 
they are fed for about ten days with a milky secretion prepared from the 
glandular coat of the crop, and regurgitated, and afterward with what the 
old ones have picked up in the fields and kept treasured in their crops. 
This way of supplying the young with food from the crop, in birds of the 
pigeon kind, differs from all others. They have the largest crops for their 
size of any birds, and they have the power of distending the crop by use 
in such a manner, that, in one species in particular (see pouter), the bird’s 
breast appears larger than its body. The numerous glands, assisted by the 
air and the heat of the bird’s body, are the necessary apparatus for secreting 
the milky fluid before mentioned, but as the food is macerated, that also 
swells and becomes considerably diluted. 
The dove-cot pigeons, like the rest of their genus, retire to their roost at 
a very early hour, but they leave it unusually late in the morning; and 
though they will perch on trees in the daytime, nothing will induce 
them to rest there at night. They are greatly attached to the cot of their 
choice; so much so that they are scarcely to be driven from it but by fire¬ 
arms. 
THE DOVE-COT. 
This may be made of any size and of various shapes. 
In erecting a dove-cot, care should be taken to fix it in some 
quiet, secure spot; and a small one is very often formed from a 
wine-cask which has holes cut in its sides, and a small platform 
being made of woodwork before each in front, forms a resting- 
place for the birds to alight upon. The interior is apportioned 
into chambers by the carpenter, or any boy of common car¬ 
pentering ingenuity may readily do this. The cask is then 
elevated on a stout thick scaffolding pole, or what is better, the 
trunk of a straight tree, and being made perfectly secure, is 
very eligible for the live-stock to be therein congregated. In 
arranging the internal chambers for the birds, these should be large enough 
for the birds to turn round in with ease; and if two holes can be allowed 
for each compartment for the egress and ingress of the birds, it will be of 
