NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. H7 



villa near Florence Decameron, from the Greek, meaning ten 

 days. I subjoin the authority of B. Lambert in the History and 

 Survey of London, &c. . . " Were soon damped by a terrible, 

 pestilence, which is said to have spread from India over all the 

 country westward of it, and reached England in 1348, where it 

 destroyed immense numbers of the inhabitants, so that it was 

 computed that in the city of London no more than one in ten 

 survived the mortality. ... I hear from the Rev. Mr. Maskell, 

 of Emmanuel Hospital, that many thousands were buried in the 

 environs of Charter House, &c. Boccaccio asserts, in his preface 

 to his Decameron, that in Florence alone the distemper carried 

 away some one hundred thousand souls ! " 



I find that it is not generally known to my friends that the 

 triangular space of ground just in front of Tattersall's gate, near 

 the top of Sloane Street, is railed round because it is consecrated 

 ground. At the time of the plague of London, this locality was 

 quite in the suburbs, and there was a plague pit here, wherein 

 a, vast number of people who died of this disease were in- 

 terred. 



PERFOKMING PIGEONS, p. 253. In January.1874, a Frenchman 

 was going about the neighbourhood of Regent's Park with perform- 

 ing pigeons. It was very interesting to notice how well he had 

 trained these pretty birds. When at work one morning I heard 

 a trumpet sounded, and upon looking out of the window, I saw 

 the man with his pigeons. The birds were sitting on the top of 

 a sort of ornamental cage, and at a given signal they all flew off 

 with great rapidity up the street. They flew right away, keeping 

 about the height of the top of an omnibus, for about 100 to 150 

 yards ; they then wheeled about suddenly, and returned to their 

 master, and, one by one, alighted on the handle of a red flag 

 which he was continually waving in the air. Nearly all the 

 while the birds were flying the man blew his trumpet, and at 

 times sounded a shrill whistle. Occasionally the birds went 

 away over the tops of houses, and returned with a beautiful 

 rush round the corner by a street different from that where they 

 started. A gentleman living opposite me keeps a number of 

 pigeons at the top of his house ; and it was most interesting to 

 observe the actions of these tame pigeons, who evidently were 

 exceedingly astonished to see the performing pigeons go through 

 their flight. Some of these trained pigeons hovered in the air 

 almost as though fixed there with wire ; I have never seen the 

 hovering so well marked. I forgot to mention that during the 

 flight of these birds one in particular perches on the top of a 

 house, and remains there till called by some peculiar signal 



