298 FARMING FOR LADIES. [chav. xy. 



close of autumn. Poets, when describing those 

 haunts — 



" Where love-sick turtles breathe their amorous pain," 



celebrate the music of their melancholy coo- 

 ing ; but, although persons of sensibility may 

 find a charm in the notes of a few, yet when 

 many of them inhabit the woods surrounding 

 a mansion — as multitudes do in back groves — 

 their harmony is not very agreeable. 



The property of the carrier-pigeon, in find- 

 ing its way home from places far distant irom 

 that in which it was bred, has always ex- 

 cited much interest, and lately more than 

 ever, in consequence of the use which has 

 been made of them in conveying particular 

 intelligence from any given spot with much 

 greater speed than if sent by post : from 

 which it has been thought to be more the 

 effect of training than real instinct. The 

 mode of teaching them for that purpose, is to 

 breed them in the loft of some elevated build- 

 ing from whence they learn to distinguish the 

 roof: they are then carried in a bag to a 

 short distance, and turned loose ; daily in- 

 creasing the distance, until at length they are 

 brought out of sight of their habitation. But, 



