LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



131 



authorities that the finisher of the law had done 

 his duty on the Tyburn hanging days Hogarth's 

 graphic record of the custom will occur to most,* 

 which afterwards sank to being the bearer of 

 the news of the prize ring, and now-a-days con- 

 veys the price of stocks to and from the continent, 

 or brings the first intelligence of the winner of the 

 Derby, kept Hirtius and Brutus constantly in- 

 formed of each other's designs and movements, as 

 the besieger, Antony, felt to his cost. In vain 

 did he spread his nets and try every stratagem to 

 bafils these couriers of the air : he had the morti- 

 fication of seeing them going and returning to and 

 fro over the beleaguered walls of Mutina. Anac- 

 reon's dove was employed on a more gentle mis- 

 sion. f And Taurosthenes sent one decked with 

 purple to his happy father in the Island of JEgina 

 with the news of his victory at the Olympic games 

 on the day of the pigeon's arrival.J We have 

 the authority of Sir John Maundeville he who 

 made his way to the border of China in the reigns 

 of our second and third Edward that the Asiatics 

 used them for the same purpose as the Romans. 



In that contree, and other contrees bezonde, (says 

 that knight, warrior, and pilgrim,) thei han a cus- 

 tom whan thei schulle usen werre, and whan men 

 holden sege abouten cytee or castelle, and thei 

 withinnen dur not senden out messangers with let- 

 tere, fro lord to lord, for to aske sokour, thei 

 maken here letters and bynden them to the nekke 

 of a colver, and letten the colver flee ; and the col- 

 vern been so taughte, that they flee with the letters 

 to the very place that men wolde sende them to. 

 For the coheres been noryscht in tho places where 

 thei ben sent to ; and thei senden hem thus far to 

 beren here letters. And the coheres tetuornen 

 azen where as thei ben norisscht, and so they don 

 comrnounly. 



During the crusade of St. Louis they were 

 so employed ; Tasso pressed them into the ser- 

 vice in the siege of Jerusalem ;|| and Ariosto 

 makes a dove the messenger that spread the news 

 of Orrilo's death through Egypt. ^f 



The rapidity and power of flight of some of the 

 species is almost incredible. The passenger 

 pigeon** has been killed in the neighborhood of 

 New York with its crop full of rice, which the bird 

 could not have procured nearer than the fields of 

 Georgia and Carolina. Audubon, who relates 

 this startling, but, I believe, true fact, observes 

 that, as their power of digestion is so great that 

 they will decompose food entirely in twelve hours, 

 the birds which were taken in the neighborhood 

 of New York must have travelled between three 

 and four hundred miles in six hours, an average 

 of speed that reminds one of the famous horse 

 Childers. He, however, could not have sus- 

 tained his " flying" pace of a mile a minute for 

 more than a very short period, whereas the bird 

 is capable of keeping up its wonderful rate of 



* Etty's dove ascending at the moment of Joan's agony, 

 and heralding the conclusion of the ardent logic of the 

 stake, will also be remembered. 



t Ode 9. J JElian. Joinville. || Book xviii. 



IT Canto xv. ** Ectopistcs migratoria. Swainson. 



progression during many successive hours. The 

 passenger pigeon would thus, as Audnbon ob- 

 serves, be enabled, were it so inclined, to visit 

 Europe in less than three days. Instances are 

 not wanting of its presence here ; but the Amer- 

 ican naturalist, who presented a number of these 

 birds to the Earl of Derby in 1830, with whom 

 they bred, seems to think that those which have 

 been seen at liberty in this country had escaped 

 from some aviary. 



Wagers have been laid and matches have been 

 made to determine the rate of a carrier pigeon's 

 flight. In 1808 a young man in the Borough un- 

 dertook that his pigeons would fly thirty-five 

 miles in one hour. Three were thrown up at 

 five o'clock in the evening beyond Tunbridge 

 Wells, and arrived at their owner's residence in 

 fifty-three minutes, thus beating time by seven 

 minutes. A gentleman had a wager on this 

 event, and he sent a pigeon by the stage-coach to 

 Bury St. Edmund's, with a request that the bird, 

 two days after its arrival there, might be thrown 

 up as the clock struck nine in the morning. This 

 was done ; and at half-past eleven o'clock on that 

 morning the pigeon was shown at the Bull Inn, 

 Bishopsgate, into the loft of which respectable 

 establishment it had entered, having made its way 

 to that point in London in two hours and a half, 

 and having traversed seventy-two aerial miles. 



When the trial of the annual prize for the best 

 carrier pigeon was decided at Ghent on the 24th 

 June, 1833, twenty-four birds which had been 

 conveyed from that town were thrown up at 

 Rouen at fifty-five minutes after nine o'clock in 

 the morning. The distance is 150 miles, be the 

 same, in lawyer's phrase, more or less, and the 

 first pigeon arrived at Ghent in an hour and a 

 half, sixteen came in within two hours and a half, 

 and three in the course of the day. Four were 

 lost. 



He who would train a carrier pigeon must take 

 a young one that is fully fledged, and convey it in 

 a basket or bag, at first not more than half a 

 mile from home, and then turn it loose. After a 

 repetition of this short journey twice or thrice, the 

 future messenger should be taken to a distance of 

 two, four, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen miles, and 

 so on, and then turned loose, till it will return* 

 from the most remote parts of the kingdom. The 

 younger the bird is, if it have strength to fly well, 

 the greater is the chance of educating it for a 

 trusty bearer of a despatch. If this drilling is 

 not commenced early, birds of the best breed can- 

 not 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,, 

 continuing on the wing without stop or stay, un- 

 less prevented, till its well-known home is reached. 

 A word to the wise by the way. Never throw 

 up your bird in a fog or hazy weather, or 't is tem 

 to one against its reaching its destination, or your 



