Crass II. COMMON PIGEON. 
I am now J4zacreon’s flave, 
And to me entrufted have 
All the o’erflowings of his heart 
To Bathyllus to impart $ 
Fach foft line, with nimble wing, 
To the lovely boy I bring. 
Taurofthenes alfo, by means of a pigeon he had 
decked with purple, fent advice to his father, 
who lived in the ifle of gina, of his victory in 
the Olympic games, on the very day he had obtain- 
ed it*. And, at the fiege of Modena, Hirtius 
without, and Brutus within the walls, kept, by 
the help of pigeons, a conftant correfpondence ; 
baffling every ftratagem of the befieger Antony +, 
to intercept their couriers. In the times of the 
Crufades, there are many more inftances of thefe 
birds of peace being employed in the fervice of war : 
Fonville relates one during the crufade of Saint 
Louis t , and Tafo another, during the fiege of Fe- 
rufalem \\. 
The nature of pigeons is to be gregarious ; to lay 
only two eggs; to breed many times in the year §; 
* Zlian var. hift. lib. 1X. 2. Play, Ue. X. c.. 24. fays, 
that fwallows have been made ufe of for the fame purpofe. 
+ Pliny, lib. X. c. 37. Exclames, Quid vallum et vigil 
obfidio atque etiam retia amne pretenta profuere Antonio, per 
calum cunte nuncio ? : 
t Fonville, 638. app. 35. || Yafo, Book XVIII. 
§ So quick is their produce, that the author of the Occonomy 
of nature obferves, that in the fpace of four years, 14,760 may 
come from a fingle pair. Svilling fleet’s tradés, 75. 
to 
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