14 
COLUMBIDiE. 
my attention^ was amid the enchanting scenery of the Sabine 
hills^ about the celebrated cascade of the Anio at Tivoli, where, 
numerous as domestic pigeons in a well-stocked dove-cot, they 
appeared flying in and out of the gloomy recesses of the rocks 
close to where the mass of waters was precipitated * The cliffs 
above these falls are crowned by the ruins of the Corinthian tem- 
ple of Yesta; from the neighbouring hill-sides the great aloe and 
the myrtle spring spontaneously, while the most antique of olive 
trees, many of them even grotesque from the decrepitude of age, 
form the chief features of the foliage.f Afar, over the dreary 
Campagna, Eome, once mistress of the world, appears. 
In the snow-white caves adjacent to Dunluce Castle, near the 
Giant^s Causeway, and those darkly pierced in the long range of 
stupendous cliffs at the Horn in Donegal, which boldly confront 
the Atlantic, southward to those of Sphacteria whose precipices 
are laved by the waters of the eastern Mediterranean, I have 
remarked that the rock-dove equally finds a home ; as it likewise 
does in islets from the -high and rugged promontory of Oe, in 
Islay, off the south-western coast of Scotland, to the Isles of 
Greece.'’^ 
Notes on Tame Pigeons. 
The following paragraph on carrier pigeons appeared in the Leinster Express 
newspaper in Dec. 1842: — “ One of these pigeons was let loose from Palmerston- 
house, near Chapelizod, the seat of the Earl of Donoughmore, when it accomplished 
the journey to Castle Bernard, which is upwards of sixty-two miles, in two hours ; 
yet the flight was much impeded, as the day was both dark and hazy, accompanied 
with a strong head wind at the time. At the late fair of Ballinasloe, Thomas Ber- 
nard, Esq., took with Mm one of these birds, which he let go in the town at eleven 
o’clock A.M. with a note appended, directing dinner to be ready at Castle Bernard at 
the given time, as he purposed being home that day, when the bird took its flight, 
and the message was delivered in eleven minutes after, having travelled twenty-three 
miles Irish in that wonderful short space of time, or, in other words, at the rate of 
125i miles an hour. These pigeons, of which Mr. Bernard has a large flock, are so 
domesticated, that he can handle them as he pleases, and so very tractable are they, 
that whenever he calls, they attend the call promptly.” 
* This was in August 1826, when the falls were in their integrity. A few 
months afterwards an inundation occurred, which completely changed the character 
of the scene, and the river has since been tmmed into a new channel. 
t Some authors have considered these the identical trees described by Pliny. 
