haracteristic of all the doves that their young are born in a
very immature state, and for some time after they come from the egg they
have to be supplied with food which has been partly digested in the crop
or upper part of the stomach of the parent. For the proper rearing of
the brood there is required the assiduous care of both parents.
Therefore quite naturally we find among these birds that the pairing
habit is well developed, and as they rear several broods each season,
that the mating is for life. Although there are numbers of birds in
various orders which are accustomed to the monogamic habit, it happens
that the pigeon is the only animal which man has ever won to true
domestication in which the sexes can be thus permanently united. In the
dovecote, however many birds it may contain, the breeder can be always
sure as to the parentage of the young which he is rearing. This affords
an admirable basis for the practice of his art, which is still further
favored by the fact that pigeons reproduce rapidly and the progeny are
ready to mate in a few months after they come into the world. Thus the
species affords really ideal conditions for that process of selection on
which the improvement of all domesticated animals intimately depends.

[Illustration: Turtle Doves]

Selective breeding of pigeons began in India, as the records seem to
show, more than two thousand years ago. Though other animals have been
brought to domestication at much earlier times, this appears to have
been the first of them to be subjected to deliberate efforts on the part
of their masters, which were intended to bring about in a methodical way
certain changes in their forms and habits. The most curious part of this
great endeavor which has been applied to breeding pigeons is found in
the fact that the ends sought have no utility, but afford satisfaction
from the point of view of pure diversion or the gratification of taste.
We are well accustomed to the action of such motives upon our flowering
plants of the garden, but the pigeon is the only animal where fancy has
labored for thousands of years for its gratification. The breeders of
pigeons from remote antiquity to the present day appear to have had no
definite purpose in all their pains. They have taken the chance
variations in form and habit and endeavored to extend these sports of
nature by a careful system of mating those in which the singular
features were most evident. Thus the fan-tail bree