Couriers of the Air. 71 



followed, it may have halted on the way. The 

 bird is believed to travel the first day without 

 stopping, and being stiff and sore, to rest the 

 second day, resuming its journey on the third, 

 since it is seldom that " a return " comes back 

 travel-stained or weary. 



When the rearing and training of carrier- 

 pigeons for French military service was seriously 

 undertaken, the first thing to be done was to 

 find a breed of birds at once intelligent, 

 hardy, strong, light on the wing, and of a dull, 

 uniform colour, likely to escape notice and 

 pursuit. All these attributes are possessed by 

 the Belgian breed, which is divided into two 

 classes ; the large, heavy Antwerp, and the 

 smaller, lighter Luttrich variety. The scientific 

 training, which must be begun early, is as 

 follows : As soon as the young pigeons can fly 

 they are taken out of the pigeon-house, put into 

 a basket, and carried (always with the flying-hole 

 of the basket kept carefully turned towards the 

 pigeon-house), to an unknown spot at a short 

 distance, where they are set free and let fly 

 home. It is seldom that a pigeon fails, in the 

 first short trial, to find its way back to its 

 paternal nest. At each trial the distance is 

 slightly lengthened. Pigeons six months old 

 are liberated at a distance of eighty kilometres 

 from home, those of a year old at one hundred 

 and fifty kilometres, those of two years at 



