128 FANCY PIGEONS. 



see many people on the flat roofs of the houses, directing 

 the flight of large flocks of pigeons by means of flags 

 attached to long bamboo poles. This sport is carried on 

 with great energy in the city of Delhi, where I have 

 seen immense numbers of pigeons flown in this way. In 

 Calcutta also, anyone who may be passing through the 

 native parts of the city, near sunset, will see the same sport 

 carried on by numerous pigeon flyers. Garden Reach (the 

 southern suburb of Calcutta) was formerly the residence of 

 many of the principal merchants and civil servants, whose 

 palatial houses, standing in their compounds of from two to 

 twenty acres of ground, are now (1878) chiefly owned by the ex- 

 king of Oude, a State prisoner there, who has gradually 

 bought up a great many of them, and surrounded them by 

 a high wall. When passing up the Hooghly river, I often 

 saw flights of pigeons that seemed to number thousands, 

 flying, to all appearance, under command, over the King's 

 grounds ; but, as it seemed impossible to gain admittance to the 

 place, I could never get a closer inspection of them, till, 

 observing in the newspapers one day that certain people 

 would be admitted, I hastened to avail myself of the 

 opportunity. The ex-king of Oude has what is said to be 

 the largest private collection of rare birds and animals in 

 the world, on which he has spent an immense sum of 

 money, and of which he is very fond. It would be out of 

 place here to describe the beautifully laid out grounds, the 

 lovely plants, the rare animals, the marble-margined tanks 

 or ponds, surrounded by gilded railings, and full of rare 

 aquatic birds, and the houses fitted up as aviaries, and full 

 of the most gorgeously feathered birds ; so I shall confine 

 myself to a description of the four great flights of pigeons, 

 which are kept in four of the houses in the King's grounds. 

 These flights are said to number about a thousand in each, 

 and are composed of only one breed, the native name of 

 which I forget. This variety is a medium-sized, very hard- 



