7 
FANCIERS’ 
JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
361 





























ee Bs cS 
Pigeon Department: 
MOORE’S WORK ON PIGEONS. 
(Continued from page 327.) 
In every nest you must put a straw basket, or earthen 
pan, bot: which are made and adapted to this very purpose; 
for besides that by this means the eggs are prevented from 

rolJing out of the nest, you need never handle your young 
pigeons, if you have a mind to look on them, which often 
puts them into a scouring. Some like the basket best, as 
judging it warmest, and not so liable to crack the egg when 
first laid; others are for the pan, as not so apt to harbor 
vermin, and say that the foregoing inconveniences are easily 
remedied by giving them a sufficient quantity of clean straw 
or frail. The frail is most valued because it lies hollow, 
and will last a great while, for, when your young ones have 
left their nest, ’tis but taking hold of the ends of the frail 
- and the dung will shake off it, and the frail be as fit for use 
as before. 
As for your trap or aviary, it is always built on a platform 
or floor of deals, on the outside of your house, that your 
pigeons may have free passage intoit. It is formed of laths 
nailed so close together that the smallest pigeon can’t make 
its escape through it. Some build these very small, with 
three doors, one on each side, which all draw up together 
by pulling a single string, intending chiefly to catch stray 
pigeons, whom they decoy into it, by strewing hempseed, or 
rape, and canary, which all pigeons are very fond of. 
Others build them very wide and lofty, so that four or five 
persons may conveniently stand in them together, with a 
shelf or two on every side, designing them to give room and 
air to pigeons of the homing sort, which they are obliged to 
keep confined ; this practice is of very great use, by keeping 
such prisoners in a good state of health. 
In order to complete your loft, you must furnish it with 
proper meat boxes, and bottles and stands for water. 
Your meat box ought to be formed in the shape of a 
hopper, as a reservoir for their food. It must be covered 
over on the top, to prevent them from dunging among the 
grain; from hence the meat descends into a square shallow 
box, fenced in with rails or holes on each side, to keep them 
from flirting the grain over on the floor amongst their own 
dung. 
Your water-bottle should be a large glass bottle, with a 
long neck, holding three or four gallons, and its belly made 
in the form of an egg to keep them from dunging on it. 
This bottle should be set upon a stand or three-footed stool, 
made hollow at top to receive the belly, and let the mouth 
into a small pan; your water will by this means gradually 
descend out of the mouth of the bottle, as your pigeons drink 
it, and be sweet and clean, and always stop when the surface 
of the water meets with the mouth of the bottle. 
The reason of which is this: the belly of the bottle being 
entirely close at top, keeps off all the external pressure of 


the atmosphere, which, pressing hard upon the surface of the 
water in the pan which is contiguous to that in the bottle, 
is too potent for the small quantity of air which is conveyed 
into the belly of the bottle with the water, and which con- 
sequently, as being the lighter matter, rises to the top of the 
bottle as it stands in its proper situation; but the water 
being sucked away by your pigeons, that it no longer touches 
the mouth of the bottle, the confined air exerts its power, and 
causes the water to descend till they become contiguous as 
before. 
THE METHOD OF MATCHING OR PAIRING 
YOUR PIGEONS. 
Your loft being thus finished and equipped, my next in- 
structions shall be, how to match or pair your pigeons to- 
gether; and here we must observe, that though they are 
very constant when mated to each other, seldom or never 
suing a divorce, except when either of them grow sick or 
very old, yet it is sometimes very difficult to make them 
couple to your liking. 
The best way therefore to effect what you desire on this 
head, is to erect two coops, usually called by the fanciers 
matching places, close together; let the partition between 
be made of lath, that they may see each other, and you may 
easily contrive it so that they may both eat and drink out 
of the same vessels; feed them often with hempseed, which: 
will make them salacious, and when you observe the hen to 
sweep her tail and show to the cock, as he plays in the other 
pen, you may then put her in to him, and they will soon be 
matched. 
But if, for want of this convenience, you are obliged at 
first to put them both into one coop, always put the cock in 
first, for three or four days or a week, and let him get master 
of the place, especially if the hen be a virago, or else they 
will fight so much as perhaps may settle in them an absolute 
aversion forever after; but if the cock be first master of the 
house he will beat the hen, if obstinate, into compliance. 
Your pigeons being thus matched, turn them loose into 
your loft, and let them choose what nest they best like; or, if 
you have a mind to fix them to any particular nest, you may 
effect it in this manner: make a lath machine, the length 
of your breeding places, closed in at top and bottom with 
boards, and projecting out as far as your loft will conveni- 
ently allow; oneof your top boards must lift up with hinges, 
in order to put in meat and water; this you may hang before 
any hole, and put your pigeons in it, and when they have 
been five or six days used to the nest, take it away—in the 
night is the best time—and they will keep to that nest. 
The same method may be used, and is very good, to pre- 
vent your strain being adulterated by a false tread, which 
an over salacious hen will often submit to. Therefore keep 
them up by this method till the hen has laid both her eggs, 
then take it away and give them their liberty, till the hen 
has fed off her soft meat, then the hen will begin to be sala- 
cious again, therefore at that time confine them as before, 
and you are sure to keep your strain pure and entire. This 
method is somewhat troublesome, and therefore not worth 
using but for your best pigeons; as for-those who breed for 
the dish, ’tis no matter whether they are bastardized or not. 
TO KNOW A COCK FROM A HEN. 
Having thus informed you how to mate or pair your 
pigeons, I shall next give you some instructions how to form 
(To be continued.) 
