FATHER OF PIGEON-FANCIERS 65 



homers could not be depended on to preserve 

 their principal quality when kept for any length 

 of time on board ship was a great disappointment 

 to him. Perhaps the failure of the service of 

 which he had hoped so much was the sharpest 

 disappointment of Tegetmeier's career. But after 

 some years of experience (for he watched the 

 progress of the work with all the interest of a 

 pioneer) he was the first to recognise the gravity 

 of the drawbacks which eventually compelled the 

 cessation of the lightship pigeon service. It was 

 finally abandoned in the year 1885. 



Wireless telegraplry has, of course, practically 

 supplanted the homing pigeon in the sphere of 

 practical work in military and naval operations ; 

 but there still remain other spheres of work in 

 which it can be, and on the Continent is, made 

 useful. Tegetmeier never lost his interest in 

 carrier pigeons, and so lately as 1902 he lectured 

 on the subject. This was at the Royal United 

 Service Institution, and the lecture was on the 

 land and sea services for pigeons, with examples 

 from recent experiments. For years he was 

 honorary secretary of the Philoperisteron Society, 

 and hon. secretary and treasurer of the Va-Vite 

 Club, a pigeon-flying club confined to a few 

 rich amateurs, men of position, such as Sir Alfred 

 Lubbock and Colonel Sutherland. It did not 

 do much practical work, and died, I am told, 

 of inanition years ago. The Philoperisteron 



