BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



ing the siege of Mutina, Decimus Brutus de- 

 spatched to the Consuls a message fastened 

 to the foot of a pigeon; the modern method, 

 it may here be mentioned, is to tie the letter 

 underneath a wing. The use of pigeons as 

 letter-carriers during the siege of Paris in 1 870 

 may well be known to many who are unaware 

 that the Germans attempted to destroy such 

 messengers by means of hawks. Pigeons, too, 

 played their part as message-bearers in the 

 recent war. 



Pliny goes on to speak of the ** mania " for 

 pigeons, which, in his day, existed to such an 

 extent in Rome that veritable " towns " were 

 sometimes built upon the roofs of houses for 

 their use; and finally sets down, no doubt in 

 all good faith, a few beliefs which, current 

 in his time, will hardly survive collision with 

 modern science. He states, for example, that 

 if the body of a tinnunculus — by which Cuvier 

 believed him to have meant the kestrel — were 

 buried underneath each corner of the pigeon- 

 house, its occupants would not desert the place. 

 He also speaks of a peculiar venom in the 

 teeth of human beings, which not only tar- 

 4 



