Indian Flying Pigeons. 137 



houses for placing the pots on, which stood in front of the house. He 

 then gave his shrill whistle, waved his flag, and the whole flock rose into 

 the air. The other flights were up at the same time, and it was a fine 

 sight to see them intermingling, separating, and wheeling round iu their 

 flight ; the dense masses casting shadows on the ground like passing 

 clouds, and the whizzing of their many wings being pleasant to hear. 

 After they had flown for some time, I asked the keeper to bring them 

 down, and I could then see how quick they were, for the moment he 

 dropped his flag and put his hand into the seed jar, they stopped in their 

 flight, hung in the air for a moment, and then came down to the ground 

 at my feet with a rush. The keeper went in amongst them and picked up 

 one, which he shook from side to side and then tossed into the air. It 

 was a yellow pied, from one of the other flights. 



It is probable that pigeon flying carried on in this way has travelled 

 westward from Asia. The Italian books make mention of a similar 

 practice being common in Moscow. It is well known that the Taj Mahal 

 at Agra, and other fine buUdings that are the glory of the East, were 

 designed by Italian architects, and nothing is more Ukely than that some 

 of the Italians who were in India from two to three hundred years ago 

 may have been pigeon fanciers, and taken the sport home with them. 

 There is even some resemblance in the respective breeds used for the 

 sport in Italy and India. The Modenese statutes of 1327 and 1547 

 prohibit the snaring of pigeons by nets or strings, but they do not prove 

 conclusively that this sport was in use then. Some of the Venetians may 

 have originated the sport in the fifteenth century. The Venetians had 

 intimate business relations with India 400 years ago, and their coins are 

 still plentiful there. I have bought Venetian ducats in India, where they 

 are valued for their purity, and hoarded up with the gold Mohurs of 

 Akbar. The sport may have reached Italy from Turkey or the Levant, 

 for I have no doubt it is carried on in Persia, Turkish Arabia, and Asia 

 Minor, with httle or no diiferenoe from that of Hiudostan. 



