217 
Pigeons too numerous. 
treatment at the hand of man. In early times, among 
the Hebrews, doves were carefully reared in order to be 
slain by thousands as sacrifices; in the medieval period 
their chief mission was to provide food and exercise for 
their unrelenting foe, the hawk ; and in our own day they 
are selected as the favourite victims for shooting matches. 
The cruel custom of fastening or sewing up the eyes 
of pigeons is referred to by Sir Philip Sidney :— 
“ Like as tlie dove, which seeled up, doth fly; 
Is neither freed, nor yet to service hound; 
But hopes to get some help by mounting high, 
Till want of force do force her to the ground.” 
(Vol. iii. p. 146, ed. 1726.) 
And again, by Ford :— 
“ Ambition, like a seeled dove, mounts upward, 
Higher and higher still, to perch on clouds, 
But tumbles headlong down with heavier ruin.” 
(The Broken Heart , ii. 2.) 
Thomas Fuller gives us some information with respect 
to the number of pigeons that were kept, and the com¬ 
plaints that consequently arose. 
“ Pigeons,” he writes, “ against their wills, keep one Lent for seaven 
weeks in the year, betwixt the going out of the old and growing up of 
the new grain. Probably, our English would be found as docile and 
ingenious as the Turkish pigeons, which carry letters from Aleppo to 
Babilon, if trained up accordingly. But such practices, by these wing- 
posts would spoil many a foot-post, living honestly by that painful 
vocation.” 
What would the worthy doctor have said had any one told 
him that messages would one day be carried by a means 
far outstripping in speed the swiftest pigeon! He adds:— 
“ I find a grievous indictment drawn up against the poor pigeons for 
felony, as the grand plunderers of grain in this land; my author, 
computing six and twenty thousand dovehouses in England and Wales, 
and allowing five hundred pair in each house, four bushels yearly for each 
