Away beyond the farm was the long North Mountain, and beyond the mountain was the Bay of Fundy, well known for its high tides. So, in connection with my pigeons, I could truthfully recite Walter Prichard Eaton’s lines:
The doorway of their coop unloosed, they spring
Straight up above the housetops noisily;
An instant pause, a sudden swoop of glee,
Then high against the blue on tireless wing
Their wide-expanding, perfect circles fling;
From that great height they look to open sea,
The far green woods smile up invitingly—
But still the keeper counts their homecoming.
Unfortunately, when we first went to the farm, there were a few hawks about that succeeded in carrying off a number of my beautiful pigeons. These hawks came with such frightful celerity that unless one sat all the time with a gun in hand it was impossible to shoot them. We could protect the chickens, for when the hawk was coming, the little wild birds that were fed about the farmhouse would scurry through the air in a hurried, unnatural way. If we noticed them, and called to the chickens, the petted things would run for shelter. Not so the pigeons. They never hurried to their lofts. When they saw a hawk they rose swiftly in the air and flew madly round and round.