FILL them with parsley, clean wash’d and chopp’d, and some pepper and salt rolled in butter, fill the bellies, tie the neck-end close, so that nothing can run out, put a skewer through the legs, and have a little iron on purpose, with six hooks to it, and on each hook hang a pigeon; often one end of the string to the chimney, and the other end to the iron (this is what we call the poor man’s spit) flour them, baste them with butter, and turn them gently for fear of biting the bars. They will roast nicely, and be full of gravy. Take care how you take them off, not to lose any of the liquor. You may melt a very little butter, and put into the dish. Your pigeons ought to be quite fresh, and not too much done. This is by much the best way of doing them, for then they will swim in their own gravy, and a very little melted butter will do.
When you roast them on a spit all the gravy runs out, or if you stuff them and broil them whole you cannot save the gravy so well, though they will be very good with parsley and butter in the dish, or split and broiled with pepper and salt.