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.
