CAERIER PIGEONS. 
197 
could be relied on^ establishments^^ for their reception 
were formed on both sides of the Channel ; these establish- 
ments required trustworthy persons- to despatch the pigeon- 
messengers and to receive them. It required a large sum to 
maintain a pigeon express^^; as much as £600 or £700 a 
year were spent on one^ a sum which may be easily imagined^ 
when it is taken into account that^ in case some of the birds 
might be shot on their passage^ a flock of eight or a dozen 
were started together. The messages were in a shorthand 
or hieroglyph^ known only to the interested pigeon-man."" 
The carrier pigeon^'s place is supplanted by the telegraph, 
but the bird is still used. The last account we have heard of 
its being employed to convey a message from a remote place 
was in 1850, by old Eear- Admiral Sir John Ross, in Corn- 
wallis Island, when in search of the crews of the Erebus 
and Terror ; but as it was a wild distance and a wild scheme, 
a carrier pigeon was not likely to come such a way. 
A fine species of pigeon [Calmas Nicoharica), belonging 
to the genus Cal(jenas, is distinguished by the pointed 
feathers of the back, and its beautiful more or less golden- 
green colour, with purple and blue reflections ; it is found 
in the Philippine, Nicobar, and other groups of islands in 
the Eastern Seas. Though when in confinement this curi- 
