PIGEON

PIGEON, see COLUMBA, ORNITHOLOGY Index.

PIGEON-HOUSE is a house erected full of holes within, for the keeping, breeding, &c. of pigeons, otherwise called a dove-cot.

Any lord of manor may build a pigeon-house on his land, but a tenant cannot do it without the lord's licence. When persons shoot at or kill pigeons within a certain distance of the pigeon-house, they are liable to pay a forfeiture.

In order to erect a pigeon-house to advantage, it will be necessary, in the first place, to pitch upon a convenient situation; of which none is more proper than the middle of a spacious court-yard, because pigeons are naturally of a timorous disposition, and the least noise they hear frightens them. With regard to the size of the pigeon-house, it must depend entirely upon the number of birds intended to be kept; but it is better to have it too large than too little; and as to its form, the round should be preferred to the square ones; because rats cannot so easily come at them in the former as in the latter. It is also much more commodious; because you may, by means of a ladder turning upon an axis, easily visit all the nests in the house, without the least difficulty; which cannot so easily be done in a square house. In order to hinder rats from climbing up the outside of the pigeon-house, the wall should be covered with tin plates to a certain height, about a foot and a half will be sufficient; but they should project out three or four inches at the top, to prevent their clambering any higher.

The pigeon-house should be placed at no great distance from water, that the pigeons may carry it to their young ones; and their carrying it in their bills will warm it, and render it more wholesome in cold weather. The boards that cover the pigeon-house should be well joined together, so that no rain may penetrate through it; and the whole building should be covered with hard plaster, and white-washed within and without, white being the most pleasing colour to pigeons. There must be no window, or other opening in the pigeon-house to the eastward; these should always face the south, for pigeons are very fond of the sun, especially in winter.

The nests or covers in a pigeon-house should consist of square holes made in the walls, of a size sufficient to admit the cock and hen to stand in them. The first range of these nests should not be less than four feet from the ground, that the wall underneath being smooth, the rats may not be able to reach them. These nests should be placed in quincunx order, and not directly over one another. Nor must they be continued any higher than within three feet of the top of the wall; and the upper row should be covered with a board projecting a considerable distance from the wall, for fear the rats should find means to climb the outside of the house.

Pigeon. M. Duhamel thinks that pigeons neither feed upon the green corn, nor have bills strong enough to search for its seeds in the earth; but only pick up the grains that are not covered, which would infallibly become the prey of other animals, or be dried up by the sun. "From the time of the sprouting of the corn, says he, pigeons live chiefly upon the seeds of wild uncultivated plants, and therefore lessen considerably the quantity of weeds that would otherwise spring up; as will appear from a just estimate of the quantity of grain necessary to feed all the pigeons of a well-stocked dove-house." But Mr Worlidge and Mr Little allege facts in support of the contrary opinion. The latter relates, that a farmer in his neighbourhood assured him he had known an acre sowed with peas, and rain coming on so that they could not be harvested in, every pea was fetched away in half a day's time by pigeons: and the former says, "It is to be observed, that where the flight of pigeons falls, there they fill themselves and away, and return again where they first rose, and so proceed over a whole piece of ground, if they like it. Although you cannot perceive any grain above the ground, they know how to find it. I have seen them lie so much upon a piece of about two or three acres sown with peas, that they devoured at least three parts in four of the feed, which, I am sure, could not be all above the surface of the ground. That their smelling is their principal director, I have observed; having sown a small plat of peas in my garden, near a pigeon-house, and covered them so well that not a pea appeared above ground. In a few days, a parcel of pigeons were hard at work in discovering this hidden treasure; and in a few days more I had not above two or three peas left out of about two quarts that were planted; for what they could not find before, they found when the buds appeared, notwithstanding they were hooded in, and well covered. Their smelling alone directed them, as I supposed, because they followed the ranges exactly. The injury they do at harvest on the peas, vetches, &c. is such that we may rank them among the greatest enemies the poor husbandman meets withal; and the greater, because he may not erect a pigeon-house, whereby to have a share of his own spoils; none but the rich being allowed this privilege, and so severe a law being also made to protect these winged thieves, that a man cannot encounter them, even in defence of his own property. You have therefore no remedy against them, but to affright them away by noises or such like. You may, indeed, shoot at them; but you must not kill them; or you may, if you can, take them in a net, cut off their tails, and let them go; by which means you will impound them: for when they are in their houses, they cannot bolt or fly out of the tops of them, but by the strength of their tails; after the thus weakening of which, they remain prisoners at home."

Mr Worlidge's impounding the pigeons reminds us of a humorous story of a gentleman, who, upon a neighbouring farmer's complaining to him, that his pigeons were a great nuisance to his land, and did sad mischief to his corn, replied jokingly, Pound them, if you catch them trespassing. The farmer, improving the hint, steeped a parcel of peas in an infusion of coculut indicus, or some other intoxicating drug, and strewed them upon his grounds. The pigeons swallowed them, and soon remained motionless on the field: upon which the farmer threw a net over them, inclosed them in it, and carried

ried them to an empty barn, from whence he sent the gentleman word that he had followed his directions with regard to the pounding of his pigeons, and desired him to come and release them.

Carrier-PIGEON. See CARRIER-Pigeon and COLUMBA, ORNITHOLOGY Index.