BY WILLIAM G. BARTON. 61 



especially in the " iris" of its burnished neck, are apt to 

 escape our notice. 



Pigeons have been associated with mankind for un- 

 counted ages. Noah's dove and the frequent references 

 to pigeons in the Scriptures are familiar to us all. The 

 earliest record of the domestic pigeon refers to the Fifth 

 Egyptian Dynasty or 3,000 B. C. But, leaving that out 

 of account, the ode to the carrier by Anacreon, written in 

 the fifth century, B. C., and the complaints of Varro who 

 was born 116 B. C., and of Columella, living about the 

 year 1 A. D., regarding the extravagant prices paid for 

 fancy pigeons by their contemporaries, are allusions to 

 pigeons old enough to make the brownest crumbling doc- 

 ument in this building seem a thing of yesterday. And 

 there may be somebody here who, learning that 100 

 is paid for a pair of carriers at the present day, and that 

 long lists of pigeon genealogy are printed, would shake 

 hands with old Pliny across eighteen centuries, and la- 

 ment as he did when he said : " Many are mad with the 

 love of these birds ; they build towers for them on the 

 tops of their roof, and will relate the high-breeding and 

 ancestry of each, after the ancient fashion. Before Pom- 

 pey's civil war, L. Axius, a Roman knight, used to sell a 

 single pair of pigeons denariis quadringentis." This sum 

 has been estimated 12 18s. 4d. 



Among the Orientals, pigeons have always been favorite 

 pets. There are thirty Sanscrit names for them, and 

 half as many Persian. India and China are old pigeon 

 countries. In fact, we believe that all civilized, and many 

 half-civilized, peoples have prized the pigeon. Besides the 

 countries mentioned, there come readily to mind, as asso- 

 ciated with this fancy, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Aus- 

 tria, Italy, Spain, France, Russia, the United States, and 

 preeminently Germany, Belgium, Holland and Great 



