128 



HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



The varieties of the tame pigeon are so 

 numerous, that it would be a vain attempt to 

 mention them : so much is the figure and 

 colour of this bird under human control, that 

 pigeon-fanciers, by coupling a male and fe- 

 male of different sorts, can breed them, as 

 they express it, to a feather. From hence 



nonnce his triumph to his father, then residing in the 

 inland of ^Egina, Pliny also narrates that a correspond- 

 ence by means of pigeons was carried on, during the 

 siege of Modena, between Decimus Brutus and Ilii tins. 

 ' Of what avail," says he, "were sentinels, circumval- 

 lations, or nets obstructing the rivers, when intelligence 

 could be conveyed by aerial messengers ?" In the 

 crusades, the practice was tried by the besieged inhabi- 

 tants of Tyre, but with less success. The besiegers 

 had observed pigeons frequently hovering over the city, 

 and began to suspect that these birds were messengers. 

 Having contrived to seize one, they loaded it with false 

 intelligence, in consequence of which they obtained pos- 

 session of the place. A regular system of posting by 

 means of carrier pigeons was established in the twelfth 

 century by the Sultan Noureddiii Mahmoud. It was 

 afterwards improved and extended, and continued till 

 Bagdad fell into the hands of the Mongols in 1258. Sir 

 John Mandeville, who travelled in the fourteenth cen- 

 tury, alludes to such a system as practised by the Turkish 

 government. It was described at a somewhat later 

 period as being carried on by means of lofty towers, 

 erected at the distance of about thirty miles asunder, and 

 provided with a proper number of pigeons. Sentinels 

 kept watch in these towrrs, to receive the birds, and 

 transmit the intelligence which they had biought by 

 others. The notice was inscribed on a thin slip of paper, 

 enclosed in a gold box of small dimensions, and as thin 

 as the paper itself, suspended to the neck of the bird; 

 the hour of arrival and departure was marked at each 

 successive tower, and, for greater security, a duplicate 

 was always dispatched two hours after the first. No 

 such regular system now exists in the Turkish do- 

 minions, but carrier pigeons are still much used there. 

 In Aleppo, during the last century, carrier pigeons 

 were in constant employment for the purpose of ac- 

 quainting the merchants with the arrival of their vessels 

 at Scandaroon. The impatience of the animal to see 

 its young was here taken advantage of, as an additional 

 stimulus to procure its quick return. They would travel 

 from Alexandretta in ten hours, and from Bagdad 

 (thirty days' journey) in two days. From Scandaroou, 

 which was distant forty leagues, they required only from 

 two hours and a half to four hours. An anecdote is 

 related of an Aleppo merchant, who, having acciden- 

 tally killed one of these feathered messengers, was the 

 first to learn that a scarcity of galls prevailed in Eng- 

 land, and, profiting by the intelligence, made a speedy 

 transaction, by which he gained ten thousand crowns. 

 Towards the end of the last century, the employment of 

 pigeons from Alexandretta and Bagdad was laid aside, 

 on account of the frequent destruction of them by the 

 Curd robbers. The practice was more recently in 

 vogue among the Dutch merchants, for the purpose of 

 anticipating the ordinary means of conveyance in the 

 receipt of stock intelligence, by which they often real- 

 ised considerable sums. For this reason, there is no 

 European country, besides Turkey, in which earner 

 pigeons are so numerous as in Holland and Belgium. 

 Two inferior varieties, called the dragoon and the horse- 

 man, have also been cultivated to a considerable extent 

 in England, but chiefly for the gratification of the 

 national propensity to betting, or as a department of 

 sport. 



OH the llth of July 1819, a great experiment was 



we have the various names of croppers, cnr- 

 rierSjjacobiiies, poivters, runts, turbits : all birds 

 that at first might have accidentally varied 

 from the stock-dove; and then, by having 

 these varieties still heightened by food, cli- 

 mate, and pairing, different species have been 

 produced. 1 But there are many species of 



performed with these animals between London and 

 Antwerp. Thirty-two pigeons, with the word Ant- 

 werp marked on their wings, and which had been 

 reared in that city, were let loose in London at seven 

 o'clock in the morning, after having their wings counter- 

 marked with the name of the British metropolis. The 

 same day, towards noon, one arrived at home, and ob- 

 tained the first prize: a quarter of an hour after, 

 another arrived, and gained the second prize. The fol- 

 lowing day, twelve others arrived, making fourteen in 

 all. Of the fate of the rest no record has come under 

 our notice. In July 1829, another experiment was 

 made, in consequence of wagers laid at Maestricht be- 

 tween some merchants there, that pigeons taken to 

 London would, when let loose, return in six hours. 

 Forty-two pigeons were brought to London, and after 

 being properly marked, were thrown up at twenty-six 

 minutes past eight in the morning. If any one of the 

 number had arrived at Maestricht within six hours, the 

 principal wager, which was for ten thousand guilders, 

 would have been gained ; but, in consequence, it was 

 supposed, of a heavy rain, the first did not arrive till six 

 hours and a quarter from the time when it left London, 

 having, nevertheless, travelled at the rate of forty-five 

 miles an hour, assuming that the journey was performed 

 in a straight line. The second arrived in seven hours, 

 the third in seven hours and ten minutes, the fourth in 

 seven hours and a half, and, in four days, more than 

 twenty had reached Maestricht. 



1 Of the common domesticated pigeon there are now 

 innumerable breeds, all less or more differing from each 

 other, and known by the name of fancy pigeons. The 

 eastern suburbs of London, we believe, is the chief seat 

 of this extravagant fancy-pigeon cultivation, which has 

 been reduced to as regular a branch of science as that 

 of crossing the breeds of horses, sheep, or oxen. The 

 individuals who there carry on the trade of pigeon rear- 

 ing and dealing, are able, by their skill and experience, 

 to produce an animal coloured exactly to a feather. 

 Certain forms, qualities, and colours of birds, are ac 

 cordingly esteemed, while the smallest departure from 

 the established fashion in any of these points renders the 

 pigeons valueless to the fancier. Inasmuch as a single 

 streak of yellow, though only the thickness of a hair, in 

 a certain kind of tulip, will reduce its price from twenty 

 guineas to half-a-crown, so will a single improperly 

 coloured feather in the tail of a particular kind of 

 pigeon lower its value in the same proportion. The 

 leading varieties of fancy pigeons are known by the 

 names of the English pouter, the Dutch cropper, the 

 horseman, the unloper, the dragoon, the tumbler, the 

 Leghorn and Spanish runt, the trumpeter, the nun, the 

 fan-tail, and the capuchin. The peculiarities of some 

 of these breeds are very odd. The tumbler, for instance, 

 derives its name from a practice of tumbling in the air 

 while on the wing. Instead of pursuing a steady 

 straightforward flight, it turns over, or casts somersets 

 backward, whirling round heels over head as expertly 

 as a first-rate rope-dancer does when he makes the back 

 spring. The fan-tail derives its name from the circum- 

 stance of its having a remarkably broad tail, which it 

 has the power of spreading out like the tail of a turkey- 

 cock. The prime quality of the bird consists in its 

 ability to make its tail touch its head, and surround it 

 with a wide glory of feathers. If it caunot do this, it is 



