[6] Pu makes a distinction between love and obsession in his postscript,[6] and also appends two other stories "as funny as Zhang's";[7] they are similar in nature, but revolve around carps and tea leaves respectively.

[11] Among the many, many varieties of pigeons, there are the Lady Stars of Shanxi, the Crane Beauties of Shandong, the Axil Butterflies of Guizhou, the Backflippers of Sichuan and Hubei, and the Allsharps of Zhejiang: each of them are an unusual species.

There are also Boot Heads, Dappled Eggs, Great Whites, Black Stones, Married Couples, Spotted Dog Eyes, and more names than I can count on my fingers, some that only a real enthusiast can identify.

Judith T. Zeitlin writes in Historian of the Strange (1997) that "(t)he stylistic influence of catalogues and manuals is particularly evident in the unusual opening of the tale (...)",[2] with regard to the technical accuracy of Pu's listing of various pigeon types.

This is similar to another Liaozhai tale "The Fighting Cricket", in which Pu makes use of technical cricket-related details from a guidebook to conjure up a story.

"[17] Li Wai-yee points out in Enchantment and Disenchantment (2014) that Pu regarded "commitment to an ideal, even when it appears eccentric or misguided," as "laudable".

[18] New York City-based visual artist Hannah Wasileski's installation A Strange Tale of Pigeons is based on Pu's short story, and features "hand-painted animations created on a Buddha Board, projected onto four tall, scroll-like screens".