CHAPTER XIIFIRST 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 asI 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 mysister 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.
Theirappetitesamused 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, withpride 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. Manypersons 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. Themother 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 domesticatedbirds, 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 theparent’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 thetime 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.