BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



ing the siege of Mutina, Decimus Brutus de- 

 spatched to the Consuls a message fastened 

 to the foot of a pigeon; the modern method, 

 it may here be mentioned, is to tie the letter 

 underneath a wing. The use of pigeons as 

 letter-carriers during the siege of Paris in 1870 

 may well be known to many who are unaware 

 that the Germans attempted to destroy such 

 messengers by means of hawks. Pigeons, too, 

 played their part as message-bearers in the 

 recent war. 



Pliny goes on to speak of the " mania " for 

 pigeons, which, in his day, existed to such an 

 extent in Rome that veritable " towns " were 

 sometimes built upon the roofs of houses for 

 their use; and finally sets down, no doubt in 

 all good faith, a few beliefs which, current 

 in his time, will hardly survive collision with 

 modern science. He states, for example, that 

 if the body of a tinnunculus — by which Cuvier 

 believed him to have meant the kestrel — were 

 buried underneath each corner of the pigeon- 

 house, its occupants would not desert the place. 

 He also speaks of a peculiar venom in the 

 teeth of human beings, which not only tar- 

 4 



