Class II. COMMON PIGEON. 3S9 



had obtained it.* And, at the siege of Modena] 

 Hirtius without, and Brutus within the walls, 

 kept, by the help of pigeons, a constant corre- 

 spondence ; baffling every stratagem of the be- 

 sieger Antony,-\ to intercept their couriers. In 

 the times of the Crusades, there are many more 

 instances of these birds of peace being employ- 

 ed in the service of war : Joinville relates one 

 during the crusade oi Saint Louis ;'^ and Tasso 

 another, during the siege of Jerusalem.^ 



The nature of pigeons is to be gregarious ; 

 to lay only two eggs ; to breed many times in 

 the year ;|| to bill in their courtship ; for the 

 male and female to sit by turns, and also to 

 feed their young ; to cast their provision out of 

 their craw into the young ones* mouths ; to 

 drink, not like other birds by sipping, but by 

 continual draughts like quadrupeds ; and to 

 have notes mournful, or plaintive. 



* JElian var. hist. lib. ix. 2. Pliny, lib. x. c. 24. saysj that 

 swallows have been made use of for the same purpose. 



f Pliny, lib. x. c. 37. Exclames, Quid vallum et vigil ob- 

 sidio atque etiam retia amne pretenta profuere Antonio, per ces- 

 ium eunte nuncio ? 



X Joinville, 638. app. 35. 



§ Tasso, book xviii. 



II So quick is their produce, that the author of the Oeconomy 

 of nature observes, that in the space of four years, 14,700 may 

 come from a single pair. Stillingjieefs tracts, 73. 



