FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH PIGEONS
Soon after starting my aviary in Halifax, I began to think of keeping
pigeons. I had always admired the tame birds about the streets, but I
had never studied them. I knew nothing whatever of their habits, except
that I had once heard a woman whose husband kept a stable, say that
it was perfectly surprising to see the way in which great fat young
pigeons that had grown to be as large as their parents, would follow
these same parents about and make them put food down their throats.
Some one told me of a young man who kept fancy pigeons in Halifax, and
one day my sister and I called on him. His birds were mostly white, and
as I stood looking at this first collection of pigeons that I had ever
intelligently examined, I was conscious of a feeling almost of ecstasy.
Only those persons who are bird-lovers can understand this peculiar
delight in the mere contemplation of the restless, beautiful creatures.
Birds arouse certain emotions, and touch a certain set of feelings
that no other creature has power to stir. They are so beautiful, so
finished, so fragile and elegant, and so helpless. Baby birds always
remind me of human babies. The young of many animals will nose about
and search for food. The tiny bird does nothing but open its beak. You
might kill it--it cannot resist, but its helplessness is its chief
claim to your love and protection.
In connection with the protective instinct of bird-lovers for birds, I
was interested in hearing of a certain popular English general, who is
said to have worried incessantly, not over the human beings that he had
killed when fighting in defense of his country, but over the death of
a helpless lizard that he one day thoughtlessly struck down with his
walking-stick. He was strong, and the lizard was weak; and instead of
protecting it, he killed it.
Possibly with regard to pigeons, I am too enthusiastic; but after
keeping some hundreds of birds, and being devoted to them all, I prefer
over and over again the bird we have always with us--the domesticated
pigeon.
My first pair were fantails--white ones that my sister chose from
the young man’s collection, and gave to me for a Christmas present.
I used to spend hours in watching them. Their tip-toeing walk, their
convulsive jerking and twitching of the neck and chest, and gently
bouncing heads, were intensely interesting, and not painful to
witness, as they seemed to enjoy their bodily peculiarities. However,
much as I liked them, I would class them among the monstrosities in
pigeon breeds. I prefer a straight bird to a deformed one. The only
consolation was that they had never known anything different.
“That fellow lives pretty much in the back of his house,” said a man,
who once stood gazing at a fantail.
Their appetites amused me, and I was informed that a pigeon is capable
of eating in a day a quantity more than equal to its own weight, though
fanciers estimate that one-tenth of a pound is a sufficient daily
amount.
Their manner of drinking was also a revelation to me, and illustrated
the lack of accurate observation in the average person. How many times
I had noticed pigeons about the streets of cities, but now, for the
first time, I was to find out how they drank.
I used to amuse myself by saying to my friends, “How do pigeons drink?”
Nearly every one answered, “I don’t know. Like a chicken, I suppose.”
“They drink as we do,” I used to respond, with pride in my superior
information. “They thrust their bills into the water, and keep them
there till they have had enough.”
My fantails were very fond of bathing in a big pan that I gave them,
and used to keep their red feet beautifully clean. At night they did
not go on a perch, but crouched on some projecting bricks in the wall.
After a time I concluded that pigeons liked a flat surface to sleep on,
so I got some boxes from our grocer, had the fronts knocked out, except
one strip to confine the newspaper and straw I put in, and hung them on
the wall.
The pigeons were delighted with them. They would fly inside the boxes,
step about on the straw, coo excitedly, then would fly up on the flat
tops and go to sleep.
Later on, when I got more pigeons, I found these big cracker boxes far
more agreeable to them than nesting-pans. The female when setting,
likes the protection of the covered top and enclosed sides. Then the
male can always sleep above her, and hear her every movement, and
he never allows any other bird to alight on his particular box. To
clean them, I would roll up newspaper and straw lining and put in the
furnace, then set the box aside to be whitewashed.
I usually kept vermin powder in the nests, and never was troubled with
parasites. Clean bedding is absolutely essential for healthy creatures.
Many persons say that birds are dirty. So is every created thing dirty
that is not kept clean. Even when I had young pigeons I could clean the
nests. I would warm a newspaper on the furnace for delicate birds, put
a bunch of soft hay on it, carefully lift the little birds on it, and
slip them in the box. The parents rarely resented my interference.
I must add to this that fanciers who keep large numbers of pigeons,
and who do not change their nest linings as often as I do, never use
hay and straw. Red nits crawl into the hollow stalks and breed freely.
Tobacco stems and pine shavings are the nesting materials used, and
birds are often allowed to make their own nests.
Pigeons kept in captivity do not usually lay eggs in winter, if they
are kept in a cold place. If they are in a warm loft, they will lay
eggs and rear young ones, but most fanciers separate the male from the
female birds at the beginning of the winter. The spring and summer are
enough for the raising of young ones.
I knew that my aviary was warm enough for the pigeons to lay in, and
wondered why they did not do so. They fussed about the nest, giving
each other resounding slaps with their wings, and finally the fancier
discovered that he had not given me a pair, so he changed them, and I
got two buff fantails instead.
These were two quiet, businesslike birds, and soon I found two eggs
in one of the nests. The mother sat on them from four or five in the
afternoon until about ten the next morning. Then, if her mate did not
fly to the nest, she would groan ominously. He always hurried to her
when she showed this sign of temper, and bowing and cooing prettily,
would step patiently on the eggs.
The female would stretch her wings, shake herself, pick off the loose
flakes of skin that pigeons shed like dust, trip around the aviary
to see what there was for breakfast, stuff herself well, take a long
drink, and perhaps a bath, then would sit in any ray of sunlight she
could find.
The male bird had to stick to his post till five o’clock came. Then
Mrs. Pigeon went back for the night. This was kept up for eighteen
days, until my mother, who was a constant visitor to the aviary,
reported at the breakfast table that she had found half an eggshell on
the ground. I was quite excited about this news that meant the first
bird had been hatched in my aviary. I hurried downstairs, and saw the
buff pigeon fly off the nest with another half eggshell in her bill.
She did not drop it near the nest, but took it to the other end of the
aviary, making me wonder whether this was the survival of the habit of
wild pigeons that would not want an enemy to find a shell near them,
lest it might lead to the discovery of the young birds.
The instinct of birds is a wonderful thing. I am often amused in
watching my canaries eat. For over three hundred years they have been
domesticated birds, yet they never keep their heads down while eating.
There is the dab at the seed, then the quick glance about, I suppose
from the old habit of never for one instant giving up the guard against
an enemy.
After I saw the mother pigeon fly back to her nest I approached it, and
tried to push her aside, so that I might see what she had in there. She
was in a terrible rage, exclaimed at my impertinence, and struck me so
fiercely with her wing that I waited till the father pigeon went on
at ten o’clock. He was very reasonable, and allowed me to look at his
treasure, which was more like a tiny yellow blind worm than anything
else. However, he was as proud of it as if it had been fully fledged,
and whenever it lifted its wobbling head, would pump some breakfast
down its tiny throat.
The large crop of the pigeon becomes glandular during the breeding
season, and secretes a milky fluid that softens the partly digested
food on which the young are fed. This young fellow being alone--the
other egg did not amount to anything--was so well stuffed that he soon
became as fat as a lump of butter, and down began to appear on his
wings.
I was very much interested in seeing him fed. The father pigeon would
take the young one’s beak crosswise in his own, and pull out its neck
as if it were made of rubber, and then send the milky fluid gurgling
down his throat. When the young one had had enough, he would put his
head under the parent’s breast. The father or mother would survey him
closely, and if the squab raised his head in the slightest degree they
would again try to feed him.
In a short time his eyes opened, and very pretty yellowish eyes
they were. He had a big bill that reminded me of a duck, and the
enterprising little creature actually snapped this bill at me when I
went near the nest. He became covered with dark yellow pin feathers,
and his fat body was almost hot to the touch. He breathed with great
rapidity, and his mother soon gave up sitting on him at night, and
perched near-by. Sometimes I felt afraid that he might be cold, and
would push her toward him. She always grumbled at me, and soon I came
to the conclusion that a mother pigeon knew better how to bring up a
young one than I did. When the squab became fully fledged the mother
drove him from the nest, and laid two more eggs in it. The young
fellow, considerably surprised, and uncommonly shaky on his legs,
hurried to his father, and trotted up and down the aviary with him.
The father, who was perfectly devoted to him, was now a pretty busy
bird. Several times before ten every morning he had to look sharply
about to see where were the best seeds for his own and his young one’s
breakfast. Then he had to stuff his crop, and grunting amiably, walk to
a water dish, and take a good long pull at it, for pigeons are heavy
drinkers, particularly when feeding their young. All the time he was
doing this I used to think that his nerves would certainly give out,
for the fat young one was waddling about close to him, flapping his
wings, and screaming for food as desperately as if he had had nothing
to eat for days instead of minutes.
When the father was all ready, he would let the young one thrust his
bill in his, then they would both shut their eyes, and the old work
of pumping down the breakfast would go on. But now, if the young one
thought he had not had enough, he would run all about the aviary after
his father, cornering and enclosing him with his flapping great wings,
and shrieking spasmodically, “More, more!” After a time he always
quieted down, and took his morning stroll with his father about the
aviary. Now that he had left the nest, he was no longer a squab, but a
squeaker. When his father went to “spell” the mother, to let her have a
run, pidgie would settle down near-by and have a nap. He really seemed
to be fonder of his father than of his mother and--though, as I have
said before, we must struggle against the tendency to humanize birds
too closely--the father seemed to be fond of him.
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