The Dragoon Pigeon. 267 



knowing it will be interesting to many, as the fancy for homing pigeons 

 is daily increasing in this country. For the same reason I give the 

 following interesting account of the origin of the Belgian homing pigeons , 

 only just received by me in a letter from M. V. La Perre de Eoo, so well 

 known on the Continent for his researches into the subject, and as 

 the adviser of nearly all the Continental governments in their adoption 

 of these pigeons for war purposes. 



" As regards the Belgian homing pigeons, they are very much like our 

 street dogs (cliiens de rue), they are the result of numerous crossings 

 between the carrier and the different varieties of pigeons which existed in 

 Belgium about a century ago. In other words, they are degenerated 

 carriers, as the wattle on the upper mandible of the beak and round the 

 eye shows clearly. Some have thick short beaks, but as a rule they have 

 thin beaks, like those sent you by M. Gere. 



"There are some birds with round heads, very short beaks, and frUls 

 like owls ; but they are very small birds, and are not so much liked in 

 Belgium as the large Antwerp birds, their wings not being so powerful. 

 These birds have undoubtedly been obtained by crossing the degene* 

 rated carrier with the owl. 



" The carrier was brought to Belgium by Dutch sailors, got neglected, 

 and soon degenerated. 



' ' There are also birds with white eyes, and these are supposed to be 

 a cross between the degenerated carrier and the 'pigeon volant,' or 

 highflier (the cumulet). 



"But all these birds have been crossed, as I state in my book ' dans 

 nos fermes et nos hasses cours,* with the pigeon hiset (the blue rock 

 pigeon) and all the other varieties of pigeons which existed in Belgium 

 a century ago, as is generally the case with pigeons which are kept only 

 for table purposes. 



" My father died twenty years ago at the age of seventy-six, and he 

 often told me that the birds he had, when he was a boy, had more 

 wattle on the beak and round the eye than the birds I kept about thirty 

 years ago, but at that time a pigeon which had flown a distance of 

 twenty-five miles was looked upon as a very good bird, and the very 

 feiv birds which had been sent to be thrown from Paris, that is about a 

 hundred and fifty miles from Brussels, were considered to be most won- 

 derful and exceptional birds. 



