Just before he came in the clock struck four. A male pigeon always helps the female in the work of incubation, and bringing up the young ones. About ten o’clock every morning the mother pigeon leaves her eggs, goes to get something to eat, and walks about the loft with the other pigeons—a pigeon rarely plays; even young ones are phlegmatic. As she comes off her nest the male pigeon goes on and sits there till four in the afternoon. Then the female returns for the night.
Well, the young princess was a sickly pigeon. There had been two sickly pigeons, for usually two eggs are laid at a time. One had died, and the father Jacobin, thinking that the young Sukey was also going to die, took her in his beak, lifted her from the nest, and gently deposited her on the floor at the other end of the loft.
There is little sentiment among birds. They believe in the survival of the fittest, and the weak are calmly taken from the nest.
The young pigeon was not desperately ill. However, blind and naked as she was, she could not have survived long, away from the warmth of the nest, unless this boy Titus had discovered her.
“H-h-hello, Charlie,” he stuttered, “here’s a squab out of the nest.” Charlie took the bird by the legs.
“W-w-what are you going to do?” asked Titus.
“Strike its head against the wall.”
Titus did not approve of this.
“Wh-why don’t you put it back in the nest?” he asked, excitedly.
“No good—once the old ones put it out they won’t look at it.”