NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 405 



of a despatch. If this drilling is not commenced eariy, 

 birds of the best breed cannot be trusted. Those who 

 would succeed, are careful to keep the pigeon about to 

 be sent off, in the dark without food for some seven or 

 eight hours before it is loosed. When thrown up, the 

 bird rises, and when it has reached a good height, will 

 at first fly round and round, and then make off, continu- 

 ing on the wing without stop or stay, unless prevented, 

 till its well-kno-vvn home is reached. A word to the wise 

 by the way. Never throw up your bird in a fog or hazy 

 weather, or 'tis ten to one ag^ainst its reachinoj its destina- 

 tion, or your seeing it again. Those who have been in 

 the habit of travelling by the short stages or omnibuses 

 in the neighbourhood of London — to Hampton and Sun- 

 bur}^, for instance — must have observed one of these 

 aerial messengers suddenly delivered from its darksome 

 bag and thrown up by one of the ' outsides' to find its 

 way home. 



The spiral flight, when the birds are thrown up, is 

 evidently a flight of observation, and when they catch 

 sight of any well-known landmark, away they go home- 

 ward. But they are lost if no such objects are within 

 ken. Thus pigeons, when loosed from a balloon at a 

 great height, after flying round and round, have returned 

 to the balloon for want of objects to guide them in their 

 flight homeward. And yet there is on record a wonder- 

 ful instance of their return to their domicile under cir- 

 cumstances of great difficulty, to say the least of it, as 

 far as guide-marks are concerned. 



The battle of Solebay was fought on the 28th of May, 

 1 672. Captain Carleton was a volunteer on board the 

 London man-of-war in that engagement, and he relates 

 that on the first firing of the London's guns, a number 

 of pigeons, kept in the ship, and of which the commander 

 was very fond, flew away. Nowhere were they seen near 

 during the fight. It blew a brisk gale next day, and the 



