Beeton's book of poultry and domestic animals - Thurman Lodge ...

Arama aitd bbeediko.
ceases in the old ones. It is a ciuibus fact, that the parent
pigeon has at first the power to throw up this curd without
any mixture of common food, although afterwards both are
thrown up according to the proportion required for the young
ones. I have called this substance curd, not as being literally
so, but as resembling that more than anything I know. It
may, however, have a greater resemblance to curd than we
are, perhaps, aware of; for neither this secretion, nor the curd
from which the whey has been pressed, seems to contain any
sugar, and does not run into acetous fermentation. The property
of coagulating is confined to the substance itself, as it
produces no such effect when mixed with milk." It is to be
hoped, after this explanation, that big stupids will, in future,
cease to send little stupids on that venerable first-of-Aprfl
errand, " a pen'orth of pigeon's milk."
Inserting their own beaks into those of their infants, the
parent pigeons proceed to pacify the hungry little maws with
this nourishment ;— pure, for the first five or six days, and then
gradually amalgamated with hard food, until their stomachs
grow strong enough to digest whole graius.
If the chicks, from some unhappy accident, should be left
orphans, you may—if you are not over-delicate—rear them
by hand, or rather by mouth ! This may be done by manufacturing
a pap of beans or com by grinding it up with your
teeth, and then taking the squab's beak between your lips and
letting hiTTi feed. I don't know what my readers wiU think of
this, but my deliberate opinion is that it is extremely nasty,
and I would see the most valuable squab, that ever was bom,
dead, and buried in a pasty, before I would wet-nurse him in
the way above described.
If the squab should die, it will be necessary to provide the
old birds with, at least, one belonging to a neighbour^ otherwise,
the nourishment in their crops will turn sour and make
them ill. If, however, a strange squab is not at hand, the
next best thing is to keep the bereaved parents on the wing
as much as possible, supply them, when at home, with a mixture
of bread crumbs and salt, and strew their house with good
sharp gravel.
Sometimes the new-bom bird will not have sufficient strength
to break entirely from the shell : you may, in such a case,
gently assist biiin with some convenient instrument—say the
blade of an ivory paper-knife. Should both parents chance
to desert their eggs, you may throw them away at the expi-