Utility and Economy of Birds 



imitated the well-made German holder so 

 perfectly that it was impossible to tell those 

 he made from the captured original. There- 

 after a number of "dud" messages were 

 sent to German lofts with their own birds 

 (Daily Mail, g.iv.ig). 



In Italy, on at least one occasion, a 

 pigeon-post message brought the news that 

 an Austrian convoy was moving in front of 

 the British lines ; an aeroplane was at once 

 despatched and completely disorganised the 

 convoy (Daily Mail, 26.vi.i8). A com- 

 pany of French troops, cut off from their 

 fellows by a curtain of fire at Verdun, 

 owed their deliverance to a HOMING PIGEON 

 (New York American, 28.iv.i8). One of the 

 most important factors of the defence in the 

 Eastern Champagne on July isth, 1918, was 

 the smooth working of the Information Ser- 

 vice under the German bombardment. Each 

 pill-box fort in the covering zone was supplied 

 with a crate of CARRIER PIGEONS, and the 

 birds brought back news of every movement 

 of the enemy and every phase of the fight to 

 the command posts. One officer commander, 



12 



