Class II. COMMON PIGEON. 295 



I am now Anncreon''?, flave. 



And to me entrulled have 



All the o'erflowings of his heart 



To Bathyllus to impart ; 



Each foft line, with nimble wing. 



To the lovely boy I bring. 



Tauroftbenes alfo, by means of a pigeon he had 

 decked with purple, fent advice to his father, 

 who lived in the ide of ^gina^ of his vidlory in 

 the Olyynpic games, on the very day he had obtain- 

 ed it*. And, at the fiege of Modena, Hirtius 

 without, and Brutus within the walls, kept, by 

 the help of pigeons, a conftant correfpondence j 

 baffling every (tratagem of the befieger Antony\-^ 

 to intercept their couriers. In the times of the 

 Crufades, there are many more inftances of thefe 

 birds of peace being employed in the ferviceof war : 

 Joinvilk relates one during the crufade of Saint 

 Louis X •, and Tap another, during the fiege of Je- 

 rufalem || . 



The nature of pigeons is to be gregarious -, to lay 

 only two eggs-, to breed many times in the year § ; 



* uElian 'var, hiji. lib. IX. 2. Pliny, lib. X. c. 24. fays, 

 that fwallows have been made ufe of for the fame purpofe. 



t Pliny, lib. X. c. 37. Exclames, Quid vallum et vigil 

 obfidio atque etiam retia amne pretenta profuere Antonio, per 

 ccelum eunte nuncio r* 



X Joinnjille, 638. app. 35. || Tajj'o, Book XVIII. 



§ So quick is their produce, that the author of the Occommy 

 of nature obferves, that in the fpace of four years, 14,760 may 

 come from a fingle pair. Stillingfleet's tra^s, 75. 



to 



