There are two sweet sights in the bird world： one when the mother breaks open her egg in order to bring to light her child， and the other when she broods1 and feeds him. Gay-Neck was brooded most affectionately by both his parents. This brooding did for him what cuddling does for human children. It gives the helpless ones warmth and happiness. It is as necessary to them as food. This is the time when a pigeonhole should not be stuffed with too much cotton or flannel， which should be put there more and more sparingly so that the temperature of the nest does not get too hot. Ignorant pigeon fanciers do not realize that as the baby grows larger he puts forth more and more heat from his own body. And I think it is wise not to clean the nest frequently during this time. Everything that the parents allow to remain in the nest contributes to making their baby comfortable and happy.
　　I remember distinctly how， from the second day of his birth， little Gay-Neck automatically opened his beak and expanded his carnation-coloured body like a bellows every time one of his parents flew back to their nest. The father or the mother put their beaks into his wide-open mouth and poured into it the milk made in their own organs from millet seeds that they had eaten. I noticed this； the food that was poured into his mouth was very soft. No pigeon ever gives any seeds to its baby even when it is nearly a month old without first keeping them in its throat for some time， which softens the food before it enters the delicate stomach of the baby.
　　Our Gay-Neck was a tremendous eater. He kept one of his parents busy getting food while the other brooded or stayed with him. I think the father bird brooded and worked for him no less hard than the mother. No wonder his body grew very fat. His carnation colour changed into a yellowish-white—the first sign of feathers coming on. Then that gave way to prickly white feathers， round and somewhat stiff， like a porcupine needle. The yellow things that hung about his mouth and eyes fell away. Slowly the beak emerged， firm， sharp and long. What a powerful jaw！ When he was about three weeks old， an ant was crawling past him into the pigeonhole at whose entrance he was sitting. Without any instruction from anybody he struck it with his beak. Where there had been a whole ant now lay its two halves. He brought his nose down to the dead ant and examined what he had done. There was no doubt that he had taken that black ant for a seed， and killed an innocent passer-by who was friendly to his race. Let us hope he was ashamed of it. Anyway， he never killed another ant the rest of his life.