=How pigeons rear their young.= After a pair of pigeons have completed their nest, the male seems to come at once to the conclusion that home duties demand his mate's constant attention. At the nest he struts about, cooing and coaxing, entering the nest himself, then leaving it and plainly showing his wish that she should take the nest. If she goes away from the nest, he follows her with his head high and his neck inflated. His cooing turns to scolding. He pecks at her and will not give her a moment's peace until she returns to the nest. The hen lays one egg and, after laying it, spends most of her time standing on the nest until the second or third day after, when she lays another egg and immediately begins to sit. She seems to know that if she sat on the first egg before laying the other, one squab would hatch two or three days earlier than the other, and the second squab, being smaller and weaker, would have a hard time. The work of incubation is done mostly by the hen, the cock taking only a minor part. For about an hour in the middle of the morning and again in the middle of the afternoon he relieves her on the nest, giving her a chance to eat, drink, and take some exercise. Counting from the time the last egg was laid, the period of incubation is sixteen or seventeen days. Young squabs, like all other young birds that are naked when hatched, are ugly little things. They have apparently insatiable appetites, and their mouths seem to be always open. They are fed by the parents with pigeon milk, which is simply the usual food of the old birds softened in the crop. The pigeon has the power of disgorging the contents of the crop at will, and feeds its young by forcing food from its crop into their mouths. When they are well fed, the squabs grow very fast. Young Homers four weeks old often weigh from three quarters of a pound to a pound, or even more, and are ready for market. Many of the fancy varieties of pigeons are hard to rear, because the abnormal structure of the beak or the interference of peculiar feather characters prevent the old ones from feeding their young properly. All the breeds described in detail in the preceding chapter are known as good feeders. [Illustration: Fig. 219. Dressed squabs. (Photograph from Dr. J. G. Robinson, Pembroke, Massachusetts)]