20 MESSENGER BIRDS. [CHAP. i. 



sons throw them off from their lap in the (roofless) 

 theatre, and they return home:" he innocently adds, 

 " they would not be thrown off unless they did return 

 home." And thus Pigeons, which once used to carry off 

 the name of a victorious gladiator, have since that time 

 been made to announce the result of the less fatal en- 

 counter of a pair of pugilists. 



Some of the learned are of opinion, that this old 

 Roman practice of sending Pigeons off from the crowded 

 amphitheatre, from seats which it was not always pos- 

 sible for the occupier to quit at pleasure, and of making 

 them carry home the news, or the wishes and orders of 

 their owner, is the very origin of the custom, and gave 

 the hint to Brutus and others to avail themselves of 

 Pigeons as messengers in more important affairs. But 

 they seem to have forgotten that, long before the age in 

 which Varro lived, the ancients made use of letter- 

 carrying Pigeons, when they went any distance from 

 home, as the most certain means of conveying intelli- 

 gence back; and that, in the sixth century before 

 Christ, Anacreon wrote the Ode which has been so 

 Beautifully translated by Thomas Moore : 



" Tell me, why, my sweetest dove, 

 Thus your humid pinions move, 

 Shedding through the air in showers 

 Essence of the balmiest flowers 1 

 Tell me whither, whence you rove, 

 Tell me all, my sweetest dove." 



" Curious stranger ! I belong 

 To the bard of Teian song ; 

 With his mandate now I fly 

 To the nymph of azure eye ; 

 Ah ! that eye has madden'd many, 

 But the poet more than any ! 



