CHAPTER XVII
PIGEONS
The pigeon is the only species of aërial bird kept in domestication to provide food for man. It is also the only useful domestic bird that is able to maintain itself and increase in numbers in populous districts without the care of man.
Description. The common pigeon is about the size of the smallest bantam fowls. It is a plump, hard-feathered bird, with a short neck, a round head free from ornamental appendages, a short beak, and short legs. The prevailing color is a dull, checkered blue, varying in shade from a very light blue to nearly black. The blue is sometimes replaced by red with similar variations in shade. There are also white pigeons, black pigeons, and many birds in which all the colors that have been named are irregularly mixed.
The male and female pigeons are not distinguished by any regular differences of size, form, color, or voice. The males are usually a little larger and coarser looking, and make themselves conspicuous by their vain posing and domineering ways, but none of these characteristics are reliable indications of sex. The natural voice of the pigeon is a soft, gurgling coo repeated over and over with monotonous effect. It is sometimes heavier and more prolonged in the male, but except in the Trumpeter and Laugher Pigeons, in which the voice has been peculiarly developed, the difference in the voices of the male and female is not marked. Even in the two varieties mentioned, many males have such poor voices that the voice is not an infallible indication of the sex. The most expert pigeon breeders are often in doubt about the sex of some pigeons until they pair.
The name "pigeon" is from the Latin pipio (to peep or chirp), and came into the English language from the French. The Anglo-Saxon name for the bird was probably dufa, from which we have the word "dove," which is still sometimes applied to pigeons. Dufa was derived from dufan (to plunge into). It seems probable that the name was given because of the pigeon's habit of dropping almost perpendicularly when descending from an elevated position. The male pigeon is called a cock, the female a hen. Young pigeons are called squabs, squeakers, or sometimes squealers. The word "squab," which means "fat," describes the characteristic appearance of the nestling pigeon; the other terms refer to the noise it makes as it persistently begs for food.
Fig. 183. Tame pigeons. (Photograph from Elmer E. Rice, Boston, Massachusetts)
Origin. Domestic pigeons are all descended from the wild Blue Rock Pigeon of the Old World. Although many of the improved varieties have been greatly changed in form, they are all perfectly fertile when bred together. The Blue Rock Pigeon is found in the wild state in Europe, Asia, and Africa. "Fancy Pigeons," by James C. Lyell, the best authority on the subject, contains this statement: "The British Blue Rock inhabits the rocks and caves on our seacoasts, as well as precipitous inland rocks, and certainly the difference between this bird and a common blue flying tumbler is very little. Their color is identical, their size almost so.... In the west of Scotland, where fanciers keep and show common pigeons, the wild Blue Rock domesticated is the bird so called."