196 
POPULAR HISTOEY OP BIRDS. 
as it is estimated that each pigeon eats half-a-pint a day, he 
calculates that such a flock would require eight millions 
seven hundred and twelve thousand bushels per day. Even 
with considerable allowances for roughness of calculation, 
there can be no doubt of the great devastations committed 
by this bird wherever it abounds. As a set-off to these 
injuries, Audubon mentions that great numbers of foxes, 
lynxes, polecats, eagles, and hawks prey on the passenger 
pigeon: amongst such flocks these predacious beasts and 
birds must make great havoc. 
The powers of pigeons on the wing are proverbial. A 
remarkable variety, before the electric telegraph came into 
operation, carried many a message to and from distant parts 
with great rapidity. This variety is called the Carrier Pi- 
geon; and some specimens, when well trained, used to fetch 
large prices. Speculators in the funds^, such as the Eoth- 
schilds in former times, some twelve or fifteen years ago, 
could not wait for the slow, ordinary courier, who brought 
news from the continent; so they began to get intelligence 
by special messengers. This intelligence was not fast 
enough ; so pigeons were trained, and after their education 
* City Men and City Manners, or tlie Physiology of London Business 
(1853), pp. 47-49. 
