Aug. 2, 1913- 
FOREST AND STREAM 
135 
Facts Pertaining to Pigeons 
III.—Influence of Foods Upon the Flavor of Squabs 
The third of a series of instructive articles on squab 
raising, by Prof. Thomas Wright, in charge of this 
branch of service, on the estate of Mr. Frank Seaman at 
Vama Farms, Napanoch, N. Y., where is carried on 
scientific propagation of fancy animals, birds and fish, 
useful to man. Mr. Seaman’s brook trout ponds are 
known the world over. 
S UCCESSFUL squab breeding consists of ap¬ 
plication of reason, judiciously applied in 
all details, and while many of the primary 
lessons in the business have been helpfully 
treated upon, the subject I am about to present 
seldom enters the mind of the squab breeder, 
important as it is. 
I refer to the culinary end of our enterprise 
and the relationship of food and flavor. There 
is an established flavor to the meat of a good 
fat squab, which is always palatable and appetiz¬ 
ing, but by using any spicy seed or grain, the 
effects passing through the system in the process 
of digestion leave a suspicion of the influence 
of such grain, and in various degrees change 
the natural quality of the meat to that of a 
seasoned dish, and it is interesting to know how 
we can aid in improving and prevent deteriorat¬ 
ing the present reputation of the squab merits. 
Let us for a moment consult the wild pigeon 
in its natural selections and varieties of food 
and the flavor which said food imparts. 
Here, for instance, is the oceanic fruit 
pigeon, found in the Pelew and neigh¬ 
boring islands, whose diet consists of the 
covering of the nutmeg, commonly called mace. 
This bird is sought far and wide by gunners of 
these islands, because the mace, which the bird 
practically lives upon, imparts a spicy flavor to 
the meat, which is in great demand for the table, 
and they are shot by hundreds during the nut¬ 
meg season. The bird is also a most useful 
creature, being the means of disseminating far 
and wide the remarkable nutmeg tree, teaching 
us a valuable lesson. 
Another illustration, now reported as having 
become extinct, though more familiar to us, is 
our old friend the passenger pigeon, or wild 
pigeon, for which a reward is now offered of 
$1,000 for a single specimen. We find the natu¬ 
ral migrative exploits of the vast flocks of these 
birds was purely in search of food, and that 
when the birds had devoured the supply of beech 
nuts, which fell to the ground in the forests 
where they grew, the pigeons would migrate 
to new fields and forests, sometimes hundreds 
of miles away. Our old gunners will speak of 
their nutty flavored wild pigeons of sixty or 
seventy years ago, and though many naturalists 
and knights of the gun have expressed opinions 
as to why this wild pigeon has deserted our 
woods and forests, none seem so feasible as 
the fact that it is a possible scarcity of food, 
caused by mutilation of forests for commercial 
purposes, which has compelled them to desert 
us, but we cannot yet believe the passenger or 
wild pigeon has become extinct. In regions in 
which it bred and inhabited at certain seasons 
of the year, several varieties of food were then 
By THOS. WRIGHT 
available, which are not now, and so fastidious 
were these birds that nothing but beech nuts 
were acceptable, and here may be the cause of 
pigeons in confinement preferring hemp seed to 
all other grains. If we put a few grains of 
hemp seed in the mouth and crack them, we get 
a sort of sweet, nutty flavor; and if hemp was 
not so stimulating, we could by a liberal use of 
it control the flavor of our product, and if it 
were possible or advisable to give our breeding 
pigeons food enough for it to select, sufficient 
for sustenance of any one variety, it would 
choose some one which would naturally influence 
the flavor of the meat, as any absolute diet. In 
search of food and favorable climate conditions, 
the wild pigeons have been found to inhabit a 
wide and extensive region of North America 
on this side of the Rocky Mountains, abounding 
in vast numbers in the neighborhood of Hud¬ 
son’s Bay. The rice fields of Georgia and Caro¬ 
lina are also very favorable visiting places; also 
the region of Green River, Kentucky, and they 
have been seen as far south as the Gulf of 
Mexico. 
About the year 1876 I annually visited a 
village some twenty-four miles south of Boston, 
Mass., called Scituate. It adjoins the famous 
Dreamwold Farm, the country seat of Thomas 
W. Lawson. Hiding in ambush, with gun and 
ammunition, within gunshot of several leafless 
trees that had died on the stump, I have shot 
dozens of these wild pigeons without leaving 
my ambush, until I had all the birds I wanted. 
There was a vast beech nut grove very near 
there, also several varieties of berries—pigeons 
are especially fond of berries—and a good bag 
of pigeons from this section was considered a 
dainty dish. So numerous were these flocks at 
that time, even hundreds shot would not have 
been degenerating to the numbers which visited 
there, and in view of the fact that the late 
autumn was the only visitation from them when 
beech nuts were ripe and falling, seems self- 
explanatory. 
We know that in the assimilation of food 
influences are imparted which control flavor, for 
if we give chickens for instance a liberal supply 
of green-chopped onions, and by depriving them 
of other vegetable food, compel them to eat the 
onion, we get an excess of the flavor and even 
the odor of this pronounced vegetable in the 
eggs and also in the meat. We also bring dis¬ 
arrangement of the physical condition of the 
bird, and so at the present time Yama Farms 
is doing quite a little experimental work along 
these lines, which in the near future we hope 
to offer in helpful abundance, gleaned from the 
dainties of the wild pigeon, and applied as far 
as possible to its kindred in domestication and 
confinement. 
Taking off our hats to the “oceanic fruit 
pigeon,’’ and thanking nature for her wild pigeon 
lesson and example, we can profit upon the meaty 
squab by adding to its already established flavor. 
Procuring at our grocery a few pounds of mace, 
and beginning with a little, we no doubt can get 
the same effect the squab lovers get in the 
Pelew Islands. The pigeon’s love for spices 
of nearly all kinds has long been known, and 
even when I was a boy a few pennies’ worth 
of anise seed meant the magnetism of a few 
pigeons from my neighbors; for a handful of 
anise seed placed at the entrance of my pigeon 
pen would draw no end of visiting pigeons, and 
with the aid of the bob wire I could secure quite 
a bunch of them in a few hours. The birds seem 
to lose all control of their better judgment, and 
(Continued on page 155.) 
