CHAPTER LXX. 



THE ENGLISH CARRIER. 



"This Bird is esteem'd, by the Gentlemen of the Fancy, as the King of 

 Pigeons, on the Account of its Beauty and great Sagacity." So writes 

 old Moore regarding the English carrier ; and, I believe, were a vote of 

 Enghah ' ' gentlemen of the fancy " to bo taken to-day, the EngUsh carrier 

 would still be found to be considered the king of pigeons. Moore 

 says, " The original of these Pigeons came from J?«2orrt, in Persia, being 

 sometimes brought by shipping, and sometimes in the Carravans ; hence 

 by some ignorant People they are call'd Bussories. . . . The Dutch call 

 this Pigeon Bagadat, I suppose, from a Corruption of the Name of the 

 City Bagdat, which was formerly old Babylon, which Nhnrod built, 

 because they judge this Pigeon in its Way from Ba^ora to be brought 

 thro' that City." I have not met with this account of the origin of the 

 English carrier in any book older than the "Columbarium." It is not 

 to be found in Willughby's "Ornithology," from which Moore has drawn 

 so largely, and, as the breed was well established in England, according 

 to Willnghby, sixty years before Moore wrote, it was probably a tradi- 

 tionary account of its origin. I have satisfied myself, however, that 

 Moore's account is a true one, having had many opportunities of seeing 

 the carrier pigeons of Bagdad. In the city of Calcutta, some years since, 

 resided Mr. David J. Ezra, a native of Bagdad, whose business connec- 

 tions extended over all the south of Asia. He had been a carrier fancier 

 in Bagdad in his youth, and at the time referred to, the ships that were 

 consigned to him from Basorah — the Bazora of Moore — often brought 

 him carriers to add to the stock of those birds which he had kept for 

 many years in Calcutta. I shall describe the appearance of these later on. 

 They were kept in an aviary in the courtyard of hia house, and shared, 

 with some Arabian gazelles, the care and attention of their owner. 



