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form. These birds are not brought up at 

 present with as much care as formerly, when 

 they were sent from governors in a besieged 

 city to generals that were coming to relieve it 

 without ; when they were sent from princes to 

 their subjects, with the tiding of some fortunate 

 event ; or from lovers to their mistresses, with 

 expressions of their passion. The last use we 

 have seen made of them, was to be let fly at 

 Tyburn on days of execution, when the cart 

 was drawn away ; pretty much as when some 

 ancient hero was to be interred, an eagle was 

 let off from the funeral pile, to complete his 

 apotheosis. 



In the Annual Register for the year 1765, 

 we read of an experiment which was made, by 

 which the velocity of flight in these birds was 

 pretty well ascertained. A gentleman, for a 

 trifling wager, sent a carrier-pigeon from Lon- 

 don by the coach to a friend at St. Edmonds- 

 bury, and along with it a note, desiring that the 

 pigeon, two days after its arrival there, might 

 be thrown up precisely when the town clock 

 struck nine in the morning, this was according- 

 ly done ; and the pigeon arrived in London, and 

 flew into the Bull-Inn, in Bishopsgate-street, at 



