94 PIGEONS. 



about one hundred and eighty miles, and across the sea, where there are no 

 landmarks ; and, unless we can allow the power of vision in the pigeon to extend 

 so far, we can hardly, I think, depend entirely upon that to bring it home. If we 

 put instinct entirely on one side and trust altogether to vision, the only way I can 

 account for the bird finding its way home is this, that it keeps soaring round and 

 round in wide circles and beating about, till at length it distinguishes in the 

 distance some familiar object or other, which it makes for at once, and when on 

 the right track has little difficulty in finding its way home ; and this may very 

 probably be the case, for the flight of the pigeon home is often as nothing 

 compared with that of some other birds, and hardly so quick as might be supposed 

 from a bird possessing the properties of the true Antwerp. But this is only my 

 supposition, and I have nothing upon which to ground my arguments. 



" I recollect many years ago — I believe it was about the first time that these 

 Antwerp birds (or, as the fanciers of the day styled them, the ' 'Twerps') ever 

 were seen in England — that one hundred and ten of them were brought over to 

 London to fly back to Antwerp, for a prize given by the Columbarian Society there, 

 and a bye-bet, the conditions of the match being that the first bird was to reach 

 Antwerp in five hours. At that time my old friend Frank Redmond (who then 

 stood high in the pigeon fancy) kept a public-house in the Borough. It was to his 

 house that the birds were brought, and from there they were tossed. It is now 

 more than thirty years since ; and as I write from memory I may make a mistake 

 in some of the minor details of this extraordinary match, but in the main particu- 

 lars I am right. In the first place, I believe that not one of these hundred and 

 ten birds had ever been up the Thames — I do not think ever before on British land, 

 although doubtless they had been tossed at sea. They came over shut up in large 

 close baskets. They arrived in London on the Saturday afternoon, and were all directly 

 turned out loose into a long room at Redmond's. Of course on the Sunday these 

 little strangers had numerous levees of the London fanciers to visit them, and were 

 scrutinized by the humble partisans of pigeon-flying with as much curiosity as the 

 first favourite for the Derby is by his most aristocratic friends as he strips for that 

 great event. I remember the impression against them was unfavourable, for they 

 had very little in common with the heavy English Horseman. But two properties 

 struck all — the extraordinary length of the flight-feathers, and the snake-like look 

 of the head and neck. The principal colours were blue and chequered, although 

 there were a few mealies among them. They were tossed ou the Monday morning, 

 and as the Borough clock boomed out the hour of eight the whole lot went up. 

 The morning was bright and clear, and the wind, which was but moderate, blowing 

 down stream. The birds rose in the air in a compact body, went right over the 

 river, gradually rising higher and higher as they swept above the city, and when 

 they were lost to view appeared to be heading down the northern bank of the river. 

 Several flights were out that morning floating in the ah, but these little hardy 

 Dutch adventurers took not the slightest notice of the English birds ; and the 

 shrillest whistle and ' whoop strays ' — which no one but a true London fancier can 



