LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
GAY-NECK
PART I
CHAPTER I
BIRTH OF GAY-NECK
he city of Calcutta, which boasts of a million people, must have at least two million pigeons. Every third Hindu boy has perhaps a dozen pet carriers, tumblers, fantails, and pouters. The art of domesticating pigeons goes back thousands of years in India, and she has contributed two species of pigeons as a special product of her bird fanciers, the fantail and the pouter. Love and care have been showered on pigeons for centuries by emperors, princes and queens in their marble palaces, as well as by the poor, in their humble homes. The gardens, grottos and fountains of the Indian rich—the small field of flowers and fruits of the common folks, each has its ornament and music,—many-colored pigeons and cooing white doves with ruby eyes.
Even now any winter morning foreigners who visit our big cities may see on the flat-roofed houses innumerable boys waving white flags as signals to their pet pigeons flying up in the crisp cold air. Through the blue heavens flocks of the birds soar like vast clouds. They start in small flocks and spend about twenty minutes circling over the roofs of their owners' homes. Then they slowly ascend and all the separate groups from different houses of the town merge into one big flock and float far out of sight. How they ever return to their own homes is a wonder, for all the house-tops look alike in shape in spite of their rose, yellow, violet and white colors.
But pigeons have an amazing sense of direction and love of their owners. I have yet to see creatures more loyal than pigeons and elephants. I have played with both, and the tusker on four feet in the country, or the bird on two wings in the city, no matter how far they wandered, were by their almost infallible instinct brought back to their friend and brother—Man.