WHARF PIGEONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 219, 15 September 1924, Page 15

WHARF PIGEONS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —A student of nature, some few issues of. the "Star" ago, gave a small but interesting article qn the wharf pigeons, but riot exactly the history, which is -as follows:-—The .pigeons of Auckland are divided into two classes, one frequenting the Ferry Building, and the rest frequenting all < parts of the city. Those on the Ferry Buildings are' mostly white, black and white, pied, smokies, arid yellows, .which is the result of in-breeding witli fantaila, which originally belonged to some party at the Harbour • Board Building. I have watched the gradual regression to mediocrity for several seasons, until now the original fantail type has disappeared, and the mongrePhas asserted itself. Those about the city are birds lost in races by clubs at Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, which have bred indiscriminately with strays of a tippler and dud nature, hence the Weak heads and lanky legs oh the ydung. They live by scouring the sheds of the Northern wharves, where ■ plenty of maize and wheat falls about. A fe.w ' years ago there, were plenty of strays, but some interested individual trapped most of them and dumped therii off to the shoot —which is the best place for them. Stray pigeons- iiiigiit look "all right on the new University- Building,where ah excellent playground and nesting'place exists among the numerous curves and crannies of tte. bridal cake top, but around the city they would be a nuisance, as per example in Wellington. There is-not a single strajf ia Dußedin, biil this is owing to it;being. a Scotch city, and no odd oite of grain , lying around.^—l am, etc., < Bjaj-oiffisStiafc i