182 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



parcels and telegraphs are the sporting papers' 

 " mediums" now ; but their ancient handmaids,, the 

 express -pigeons, did them right good service in the 

 days when Sir Vincent Cotton drove The Age, and 

 Professor Wheatstone was a name unknown. They 

 generally flew the fifty-five miles from Goodwood to 

 London in about one hour and fifteen minutes ; and 

 it was necessary to teach them the ground by a suc- 

 cession of nights, beginning at one, two, and three 

 miles, and gradually increasing by five miles, about 

 three times in the week. The fancier sucks their 

 beaks before throwing them up, on the same principle 

 that a race-horse has the water-bottle applied to his 

 lips just before he is mounted. Several of the bad 

 birds were picked off on race-days by gunners, who 

 were anxious to read the little billet on their leg; but 

 not three in a hundred of the good birds, who always 

 fly out of gunshot, and do not loiter to execute a num- 

 ber of wheeling flights before they hit off the bearings 

 of their overland route. If the billet was tied, as 

 is popularly supposed, under the wing, the bird would 

 not fly far, but stop on some house-top to plume its 

 ruffled feathers. We have heard of them coming 

 from Epsom with an entry-list printed on tissue- 

 paper tied to each leg, so as to balance them. Some 

 of the best, 011 a fine clear day, have done the dis- 

 tance from Goodwood to their metropolitan dovecote 

 under the hour, but their powers of flight depend 

 almost entirely on the state of the atmosphere, and 

 their being kept in high condition by constant changes 

 of food. This change is equally essential to man and 

 beast ; and the fact is so well known, that in one of 

 the petty continental states where it is forbidden to 

 put felons to death, they kill them by feeding them 

 entirely on veal and red wine. The best express car- 

 riers are half-breds, between an Antwerp and a dra- 

 gon, but the latter must not be too heavy birds. A 

 web-footed bird of this breed, which was reared by a 



