e /} . / (>/>>>>> \ \i u I m* ' " \ cc e << S S H (- P- 160- { Willughby. 126 CARRIERS. [CHAP. iv. term to the cross between the Horseman and the Tum- bler. There is another Horseman, of which the Treatise observes, " It is to this day a matter of dispute, whether this be an original Pigeon, or whether it be not a bas- tard strain, bred between a Carrier and a Tumbler, or a Carrier and a Powter ; and so bred over again from a Carrier ; and the oftener it is thus bred, the stouter the Horseman becomes. " The only thing that seems inclinable to favour the opinion that they are original, is a strain of this kind brought over from Scandaroon, which will fly very great lengths, and very swift; but still the answer readily occurs, that they may be bred originally the same way at Scandaroon, and so transmitted to us ; but that we cannot determine." CARRIERS are a race of Pigeons which from a remote antiquity have been employed in the office of fetching, rather than of carrying, letters. They thus bring in- telligence home from whatever place, within their power of return, they may have been purposely sent to. They do not carry letters out wherever they are bid, as some have supposed. They are the reverse of the General Post : that forwards a note to any part of the known world ; they will only deliver a note from any part of the world known to them. To avail one's self of the services of Carrier Pigeons, birds must first have been sent to the place from which intelligence is desired : so that in cases where difficulty of access is likely to occur, considerable foresight has to be exer- cised. It would be no use wishing for the arrival of a courier Pigeon from a fortified town, or the Eddystone CHAP, iv.] CARRIERS. CASTLE OF THE DOVES. 127 Lighthouse, if the one were in a state of siege, and the other fairly in for six weeks had weather. The birds have to he kept and confined in the places whence they may be required to start on any emergency. If the points from which intelligence is to be con- veyed are situated at great angular distances from each other and from the central home, different sets of birds have to be maintained. The Pigeon which will tra- verse with practised ease the space from London to Birmingham, may be unable to find its way from Bangor or Glasgow to the same town. Carrier Pigeons have been largely employed in con- veying messages across the English Channel ; the Antwerp birds are so celebrated as to be cultivated as a separate sub-race ; and there are few seaport towns on our eastern and southern coast, from Great Yarmouth to Penzance, in which there are not one or two Pigeon- trainers resident, to whose hands a variety of birds are constantly entrusted. It is over seas and desert tracts that Pigeons are the most useful as well as the surest messengers ; in civilized arid thickly-peopled countries they are less needed, and are moreover apt to get entrapped or shot, and their secret stolen from them. Accordingly we find that they have been much em- ployed in the East : our Carrier Pigeons are nothing but an imitation of Oriental example. From the many instances that might be given, we select one less hackneyed than usual. " The Castle of Kooshler, or Castle of the Birds (at Bagdad), borrows its name from the Doves, by which an old monk formerly residing at this convent conveyed his letters. The convent crumbled into ruins on the birth-night of the Prophet ; the remains of it go now 128 HOW CARRIERS FIND THEIR WAY. [CHAP. IT. by the name of the Doves. The letter-doves (Koordjer) of Bagdad remained, and became an institution cele- brated in Greece, Arabia, and Persia. The inhabitants of Bagdad feed them together, and separate then the coveys, sending them to Syria, Egypt, and even to Yemen and India, from whence they return with letters written on fine silk paper. There are examples that such a Dove has been sold for five hundred piastres. The merchants of Cairo feed a great number of such Doves to convey letters to (from ?) their correspondents at Damietta, Rosetta, Alexandria, Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco on one side, and to (from ?) Jedda, Yenboo, and Mecca on the other. These Dove messengers are continually under way from and to Bagdad and Cairo, and I saw many of them during my stay in Egypt. It is from them that this convent bears its name." * The great puzzle to most persons is, how the Pigeon finds its way through such long distances as we know to be occasionally traversed by it. A correspondent, whose name stands high in the scientific world, guesses that animal magnetism may have something to do with, it. " I should like," he writes, " to inclose a Pigeon in some active galvanic machine, of such a nature, that if a magnet was also inclosed, its poles would be re- versed, and see whether the Pigeon thus transported would find its way home. I can imagine a bird to have a sense of its own diamagnetic condition, and so keep a sort of rough dead reckoning when transported." I once asked a Pigeon-fancier whether he believed that there ever existed such a person as an honest Pigeon-dealer; after some consideration, he replied, * Southey's Common-Place Book, 2nd Series, p. 447. CHAP, iv.] PHRENOLOGICAL DOCTRINE. 129 " No ! " I believe that such people, though rare, still are to be found. But this galvanic experiment, if suc- cessful, would completely and practically baffle the old tricks of the trade. We should only have to purchase a lot of Pigeons, reverse their poles by galvanism, and then turn them loose at once, fearless of the traps, not of the seller, but of the breeders who sold them to the seller, who, when lost Pigeons are inquired after, is so seldom able to remember the name and address of the parties from whom he had them. M, Temminck, unfortunately writing on Domestic Pigeons not from his own experience, but relying on Parmentier and others does not say a word about the Carrier; an omission in his valuable work which will render any information I can communicate all the more welcome to my readers. It is doubtful how far the faculty or instinct of these birds would enable them to discover their home through long intervals of unknown country, where the space between, say, two of their horizons from their highest elevation, is all fresh and devoid of recognisable landmarks. It is usual not to trust to such a power of discovery in birds that are to be em- ployed on any important service, but to train them, by taking them further and further from home. In con- ducting this mode of education, many a time, when a boy, have I gone out for a country walk, with two or three Pigeons in my pocket, or wrapped up in a silk handkerchief tucked under my arm, to be tossed off at the furthest point of the excursion, and to be found at home on my arrival there. Mr. George Combe, and the phrenological writers, account for the feats performed by the Carrier and other Pigeons, by supposing them to result from the 130 THE ORGAN OF LOCALITY. [CHAP. iv. action of a special organ of the brain, which they have named Locality, and which, when highly developed in man, appears as " two large prominences, of singular form, a little above the eyes, commencing near each side of the nose, and going obliquely upwards and out- wards, almost as high as the middle of the forehead." Sir George Mackenzie considers the primitive faculty to be that of perceiving relative position. The organ is affirmed to be large in the busts and portraits of all eminent navigators and travellers, such as Columbus, Cook, and Mungo Park. Dr. Gall believes the organ to be possessed by the lower animals, and relates several amusing stories of dogs returning to their homes from a great distance, without the possibility of their having been guided by smell or sight ; indeed, his whole work is full of delightful illustrations of natural history. Similar facts with regard to other animals and birds must occur to the memory of every reader ; and we must allow that no credible hypothesis for the means by which this surprising faculty is exercised has been offered, except by the phrenologists. Dr. Gall considers it to belong to the organ of Locality. The Falcon of Iceland returns to its native place from a distance of thousands of miles ; and Carrier Pigeons have long been celebrated for a similar tendency, though of inferior power. The migrations of Swallows. Nightingales, Terns, &c., are attributed by Dr. Gall to periodical and involuntary excitement of the organ of Locality ; for this excitement, it cannot be denied, occurs even in birds kept in cages, and abundantly supplied with food. We must admit that at least some affections of the mind are subject to involuntary and periodical excitement of various intensity. A gentle- CHAI>. iv.] EXPERIMENT WITH CARRIERS. 131 man with whom I was well acquainted, who had the organ of Locality largely developed, made his way with ease from a point in Argyleshire to one in In- verness-shire with no other guides than a pocket com- pass and an indifferent map a feat which will be appreciated by those who have ever had a peep at the mountains of Glencoe, Glencroe, and the Devil's Stair- case, which he had to cross. We give a quotation respecting Carrier Pigeons from the " Phrenological Journal,"* because it is much to the purpose, as well as because that work is not likely to fall in the way of the generality of readers. " Dr, Gall considers this surprising talent (of birds and ani- mals returning to their homes) to have some connexion with the organ of Locality. I do not pretend to offer any hypothesis in relation to this matter, but shall state merely a few doubts and suggestions ; and having some time ago made an experiment, with the view of ascer- taining whether Carrier Pigeons can instinctively return to their homes from a distance, or whether, to make them useful as messengers, it be necessary to teach them the road, I think it may be interesting to you to learn the result. " A pair of very fine Carriers having been sent me by a friend, I kept them for some time in the house, and, I think, for about three weeks in the Pigeon-house, in order to give them full time to forget tneir former place of residence. When permitted to fly abroad, they returned to their new habitation, where they soon had young ; and when these were able to provide for themselves, and the female was a second time busied in * Vol. viii. p. 71. 132 EXPERIMENT. [CHAP. iv. the work of incubation, it was considered the best time to make the experiment, as the male would then have the strongest inducement to return to his mate. Ac- cordingly he was sent, along with his two young ones, to a friend's near Kelso. That place was well adapted by its situation for the object in view ; for, as the road lies over the high ridge of the Lammermoor Hills, it was necessary for the bird to fly to a great distance in the proper direction, before he could see any part of the country of which he was likely to have acquired a knowledge, while taking pleasure excursions through the air in clear weather from his own home a pas- time much indulged in, when he was first allowed to fly from the Pigeon-house, and which in all probability was prompted by a strong desire to know the appear- ance of the land. To avoid all danger from sports- men, the bird was let off from my friend's house on the Sunday morning ; and after rising to a considerable height, he took his course in a fair direction towards home. He was not seen for two days, but, being unable to find his way home, he returned to the place where he had last seen his young, and which he had only time to observe as he towered in the air before he took his direct line of flight. On the top of this house he lived for some weeks, and until a Pigeon-house was made in the roof, and his young allowed to go out after being confined a proper time to the house. This, I think, when joined with other observations on the subject, clearly proves that the Carrier is guided in his journey solely by memory, and a knowledge of the country he has to traverse. These birds, when employed to carry intelligence from one part to another, are trained by being taken, first, say five miles from CHAP.IV.J CARRIERS IN TURKEY. 133 home, then ten, and so on till the whole journey is completed by short stages ; and even should the bird know the road, it cannot travel in foggy weather. " Among these animals, as among men, some are more easily taught than others, and the fanciers distinguish the best birds by the height and fulness of the mem- brane above the nostrils; and the method they prac- tise to set off an indifferent bird is to raise this mem- brane, and puff up the part by stuffing pieces of cork under it." I have tried similar experiments with similar results. Inexperienced birds return home from short distances very easily, if the ground over which they have to fly lies all in one plain or in one valley ; but if any high ground intervenes between the place where they are thrown off and their home, they are very apt to lose their way. When thus bewildered, they are liable to get shot during their endeavours to find the right course, and in many parts of England Sunday does not afford them the exemption from unauthorized gunners which it ought to do. In short, even if the phrenological doc- trine be true, that the Pigeon finds its way by means of the organ of locality in its brain, still that organ re- quires to be exercised, in order to be of service on any unusual emergency. The Treatise takes the same view of the performances of Carriers. " In Turkey they call them Bagatins, or Couriers ; and the Turks and Persians make a common practice of breeding this sort of Pigeons in their seraglios, where there is one whose business it is to feed and train these birds for the use afterwards designed, which is done in this manner : when a young one flies very hard at home and is come to its full strength, they carry it in 134 SIR JOHN ROSS'S CARRIERS. [CHAP. ir. a basket, or otherwise, about half a mile from home, and there they turn it out ; after this they carry it a mile, then two, four, eight, ten, twenty, &c., till at length they will return from the furthest parts of the kingdom. This practice is of admirable use ; for every bashaw has generally a basket full of these Pigeons sent him from the grand seraglio ; and in ease of any insurrection, or other emergent occasion, he braces a letter under the wings (?) of a Pigeon, whereby its flight is not in the least incommoded, and immediately turns it loose ; but for fear of their being shot, or struck by a hawk, they generally dispatch five or six ; so that by this means dispatches are sent in a more safe and speedy method than could possibly be otherwise con- trived. N.B. // a Pigeon be not practised when young, the best of them will fly but very indifferently, and may very possibly be lost." * The N.B. explains everything ; and an excellent commentary on the principles of Pigeon-flying has been called forth by the cruel hoax that has gone the round of the papers respecting the Pigeons supposed to have arrived in Scotland from Sir John Ross in the Arctic Regions. It appears that Miss Dunlop, of An- nan Hill, presented Sir John, on his leaving Ayr on his chivalrous expedition, with two pairs of Carrier Pigeons, an old pair and a young one. It was arranged that he should dispatch the young birds when he had fixed him- self in winter quarters, and the old ones when he fell in with his missing friend Sir John Franklin, in search of whom he was about to expose himself to Arctic dan- gers. The gift was kindly meant, but very foolish : the * Page 76. CHAP, iv.] EXPLANATION. 135 lady had much better have presented the voyager and his crew with an enormous and well-seasoned Pigeon- pie to eat, and a barrel of good Scotch ale to drink, on first coming in sight of the ice; for hope deferred maketh the heart sick, both with friends at home, and with sailors abroad. On Sunday, the 13th of November, 1850, two strange Pigeons were observed flying about the dovecote at Annan Hill, which being under repair at the time was unfortunately shut. Suspicion was excited, and on next Thursday they were traced to the seat of a neighbouring gentleman, and one was secured. The fact of their being captured elsewhere, proves that they were only a pair of stray Pigeons, in search of a home they knew not where, and not Miss Dunlop's Pigeons come back again. " Its feathers were ruffled and somewhat torn, showing, very probably, that the dispatch attached to it had worn off in the long and weary flight of somewhere about 2000 miles. Unfortunately, therefore, there is no written intelligence from the explorers. The other bird has not been caught. We remember no similar feat being performed by a Pigeon," &c., &c. In the " Manchester Guardian," Mr. J. Galloway throws discredit on the whole affair, in the following very sensible remarks : " Those who know anything of the habits of Pigeons, or the careful training requisite to enable them to accomplish long flights, will not easily be led astray by the clumsy invention of some ignorant wag, desirous of practising on the credulity of the pub- lic. Two Pigeons were said to have been seen at a considerable distance from their cot, because it was shut up. This would be contrary to their habits ; they 136 NECESSARY TRAINING. [CHAP. iv. would remain at their old habitation until nearly fa- mished with hunger. Again : one of them had the fea- thers ruffled or disordered under the wing, as if a let- ter had been fastened there. Now an express flyer of Pigeons would just as soon think of tying a letter to a bird's tail, as under its wing. The practice is to roll some fine tissue paper neatly round the leg, secured with a thread of silk ; and thus the bird can travel, without the paper causing resistance or impediment to its flight. Then, more marvellous still, the creature must have flown 2000 miles ! a considerable distance of which must have been over snowy or frozen regions. In modern times, no such distance as 2000 miles has been accomplished by any trained Carrier Pigeon. The merchants and manufacturers of Belgium have done more to test the capabilities of Pigeons than any other people. Their annual Pigeon-races produce an excite- ment almost equal to our horse-races. In 1844 one of the greatest races took place, from St. Sebastian, in Spain, to Vervier. The distance would be about 600 miles. Two hundred trained Pigeons, of the best breed in the world, were sent to St. Sebastian, and only 70 returned. In another race to Bordeaux, 86 pigeons were sent, and 20 returned. A strange and mistaken notion prevails that it is only necessary to send a Carrier Pigeon away from home and that its instinct will invariably lead it back. Let any one try the experiment, and send the best bred Carriers at once to Birmingham, and I ven- ture to assert that not one will return to Manchester without previous training viz. taking them short dis- tances at a time and then increasing by degrees. It has been asserted that Pigeons are guided on their return CHAP. iv.J ANTWERP CARRIERS. 137 home from long distances by instinct. Instinct is said to be unerring ; not so the Pigeon's flight. If instinct be the guide, why not fly through foggy weather with equal speed and facility as in clear sunshine ? This, it is notorious, they cannot accomplish. When the ground is covered with snow, Pigeons seem to miss their points of guidance, and are lost. This would seem to favour the opinion that they travel by sight, and are less in- debted to instinct than is generally imagined. Carrier Pigeons do not fly at night ; they settle down if they cannot reach their home by the dusk of evening, and renew their flight at daylight next morning. The ve- locity of a Pigeon's flight seems to be greatly overrated ; and no doubt your readers will be surprised to learn that a locomotive railway engine can beat a Carrier Pigeon in a distance of 200 miles." The flight of the Carrier-Pigeon is clearly not con- ducted by the same principle which guides the Stork, the Quail, and the Woodcock, over wide seas, by night. That may be an excitement of the organ of locality ; this is not. I have had birds, that had been taken from home six or seven miles, come back at last at the end of two or three days ; i.e., they could not find their way immediately. In the same time in which they accom- plished these six or seven miles, migratory birds would have passed over four or five hundred at least. The Pigeons alluded to by Mr. Galloway are the famous Antwerp Carriers. But Antwerp Carriers have been cruelly vituperated by De Beranger, because they are now mostly employed in matters of business rather than of gallantry. His complaint is not to be won- dered at; for when sensuality once lays hold of a man, it often becomes his sole idea. No apology is offered 138 DE BEBANGEB. [CHAP, iv for the translation of his verses ; it seems to the trans- lator to be quite as good as the original. LES PIGEONS DE LA BOURSE. PIGEONS, vous que la Muse antique Attelait au char des Amours, Ovi volez-vous 1 ? Las, en Belgique Des rentes vous portez le cours ! Ainsi, de tout faisant ressource, Nobles tares, sots parvenus, Transforment en courtiers de bourse Les doux messagers de Venus. De tendresse et de poesie, Quoi ! 1'horame en vain fut allaite. L'or allume une frenesie Qui fletrit jusqu'a la beaute ! Pour nous punir, oiseaux fideles, Fuyez nos cupides vautours ; Aux cieux remportez sur vos ailes La poesie et les amours. THE STOCK (EXCHANGE) DOVES. YE Pigeons, whom the ancient Muse Once harnessed to the car of Love, Where haste ye ? Shame ! Oh bear ye news To Antwerp how the markets move 1 Thus ill-famed nobles, idiots vain, In hope to shun their threaten'd fate, In stock-jobbing employ the train That erst on Venus used to wait. On sentiment and poetry Was infant Man thus vainly fed 1 Shall gold maintain a tyranny That strikes the povv'r of beauty dead 1 In just revenge, ye faithful race, Far from these greedy vultures fly, And heav'nwards bear through distant space All sweet amours and poetry. CHAP, iv.] ENGLISH CARRIERS. 139 De Beranger was the poet, or perhaps the prophet of Socialism, and it would have been well for himself, as for others, if all his Chansons had been as harmless as this one. It will be no great loss to the rising genera- tion, if the Pigeons do carry utterly away a great part of M. de B.'s poesie and amours ; but they will cer- tainly remove them riot to the heavens, but to some lower destination. As Carlysle said of Diderot, who- ever has read De Beranger ought to wash thrice in running water under a good hydropathic douche for instance after the perusal, and be clean, if he can, by those means. The English Carrier is mostly black in colour, and has the fleshy excrescences around the eyes, and at the base of the bill, much more developed than the Ant- werp birds. It is above the ordinary size of Pigeons, and its form is a happy combination of strength with gracefulness. Its beak is long and straight, in contrast with that of Turbits and Tumblers ; its head is long and oval ; its neck thin and taper. The Antwerp Car- rier is still more slim in its proportions, with great length of wing. Its colour also is more various. Well-bred birds of both varieties are often kept during their whole lives in dealers' cages, and then little observation of their movements can be made ; but when indulged with liberty they are impetuous and active, even more so than the Rock Dove, which would be the next best bird to employ as a letter-carrier. Such incarcerated birds can sometimes be bought with a warranty of their having never been flown, but even then great caution must be exercised in letting them out for the first time. They are apt, in their joy at emancipation, to dart off in a straight line, as if by some instinctive impulse, even 140 OEJENTAL OEIGIN. [CHAP. iv. though they have no known home to go to ; and so lose themselves beyond the power of retracing their way. Their acquaintanceship with the other Pigeons of the same loft offers the best chance of regaining them in such cases. The result of all the learning that one can collect respecting the Carrier Pigeons, clearly indicates their oriental origin. " The Dutch," says the Treatise, " call this Pigeon Bagadat, probably from a corruption of the name of the city Bagdat, which was formerly old Babylon, which Nimrod built ; because they judge this Pigeon in its way from Bazora to be brought through that city." The name of Nimrod recalls the legend that Semiramis herself is said to have been changed into a Dove ; which sounds as incongruous a metamor- phosis as if we were told that Catherine of Russia had been changed into a Dove ; for neither of those ladies could be said to be Doves before the change. Mr. Layard tells us, that, according to a tradition resembling the Orphic legends, Aphrodite herself was born of an egg, which fell out of heaven into the Euphrates, and was incubated by two Pigeons. Appended to this are the Doves of Venus and the oracular birds of Dodona. And we are further informed that in the earliest sculp- tures of Nimrod, the king is only seen in adoration before one symbol of the deity the figure, with the wings and tail of a bird inclosed in a circle, resembling the Ormuzd of the Persian monuments. The resem- blance of a modification of this to the winged globe of Egypt is pointed out by Mr. Layard; and our own dove- like representation of the Holy Spirit may be an em- blem borrowed from these abstrusely-ancient symbols. And the superstitious regard which the modern Rus- CHAP. IV.] LACE AND FRIZZLED PIGEONS. 141 sians still entertain for the family of Pigeons, may be attributed to the influence of traditions whose source is far earlier than the Christian era. THE LACE and the FRIZZLED PIGEONS are both great rarities : the latter I have never seen ; the former only in the collection of her Majesty the Queen, at Wind- sor. The Treatise speaks of the Lace Pigeon as " ori- ginally bred in Holland, where I am informed there are great numbers of them ; though not one that I know of is to be seen in England at present. It is in size ra- ther less than a common Runt, and like it in shape and make ; though I once saw a Shaker of this kind ; their colour is white, and they are valued on account of their scarcity and the peculiarity of their feathers ; the fibres, or web, of which appear disunited from each other throughout their entire plumage, and not the least con- nected, as is common with all other Pigeons, where they form a smooth close feather." The birds most nearly approaching to these in plumage are the Silky Fowls. The Frizzled Pigeon is called by the Treatise, The Frilled-lack. " What is chiefly remarkable in them," it says, " is the turn of their feathers, which appear as if every one distinctly had been raised at the extremity with a small round pointed instrument, in such a man- ner as to form a small cavity in each of them. Aldro- vandi figures a" Columba crispis penn is," without giving a description of it ; but proving, however, that among Pigeons, as among Fowls, there have existed, for some hundred years at least, Frizzled or, as they are called by some, Friesland races of birds. Beyond these there appear to me to be no other va- rieties of solely domestic Pigeons which demand notice ; but a few supplemental particulars may be given before 142 SUPPLEMENTAL PARTICULARS. [CHAP. iv. closing the chapter. " The eggs of the Columbidae are all, as has been stated, much alike, and always pure white. Those of the Ring Dove are, however, more blunt and rounding in shape than the eggs of the do- mestic birds, and do not taper so much. The young also of the different species vary very little at first, The old birds frequently, from some cause, seem to neg- lect one of their offspring, not giving it an equal quan- tity of food with the other one ; nor does this neglected chick reach the size of its companion (which far out- strips it in growth) until it can feed itself. [Sometimes one of the two squabs is actually starved to death by the undue favouritism of the parents towards the other.] I have never known the eggs produce two hens, though I have frequently had instances of the young birds prov- ing both to be cocks ; and this may be discovered by the incessant bickerings they keep up, at the time when they ought to be forming a quiet matrimonial attach- ment. Some of the larger Pigeons, as the Runts and Powters, often have fierce engagements, dealing each other severe Swan-like blows with the wing, for an hour together. Hamlet used a metaphor which was only par- tially correct when he said, ' But I am Pigeon-livered, and lack gall To make oppression bitter.' Shakspeare elsewhere acknowledges that even Pigeons may occasionally be choleric. ' The smallest worm will turn being trodden on ; And Doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.' Henry IV., Act 2, Scene 2nd (3rd Part). " He also, in ' As you like it' (Act 4, Scene 1), remem- bers the harshness with which the male bird drives the CHAP. iv.J QUARRELS AND MATCHES. 143 truant female to her nest ' I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary Cock-pigeon over his hen.' Which is saying a good deal, for Pigeons can buffet smartly. Indeed, I well remember, when a child, being terribly scared one day by a Powting Pigeon. I had gone up into a hay-loft when the old cock bird was sitting on his eggs at the corner of a truss of hay, just the height of my head. The place was nearly dark, and on passing close by him, he saluted me with a couple of sound boxes on the ear, accompanied by what I then thought a deep groan ! "In their wing to wing engagements, the younger cocks generally succeed in mastering the elder ones. I have noticed, that when a hen Pigeon loses her mate by death or other accident, she generally goes off, and is lost to her owner, unless a husband be quickly sup- plied ; but if the cock is the survivor, he will soon pro- vide himself with a mate from some quarter, though not always perhaps to the taste of his master. The conju- gal love and fidelity of these birds has always been made a great deal of ; but there is no bird that will form a new attachment in so short a space of time. Wishing one day to pair a cock Pigeon more suitably, I took away the hen in the afternoon, and shut up the cock with his new companion. By the middle of next day they had paired, and were become excessively agreeable to each other. They were then let out, and by the afternoon of the day after had commenced build- ing. [In such cases, however, they are very apt to go back to their first love, unless he or she is utterly made away with.] It seems to be a rule among Pigeons (if food is plentiful and the weather not too severe), that as soon as ever the web of the young quill feathers appears on the squabs, the parents again commence building. 144 MODE OF MATING. [CHAP. iv. They still continue their care of the former ones after the second young are hatched, but seem often much re- lieved by their sudden disappearance into the depths of a pie." H. H. But true love does not always run on thus smoothly : with Pigeons, if the cock is not a bit of a tyrant, the hen is apt to be an indomitable vixen. " Notwithstand- ing they are very constant," says the Treatise, "when paired to each other, seldom parting, except when either of them grows sick or very old, yet 't is difficult to make them pair to one's mind. " Therefore, to oblige them to this, there should be two coops erected, called by the fanciers matching places, close together, with a lath partition between them, that they may see each other ; and should be so contrived, that they may both eat and drink out of the same ves- sels, feeding them often with hemp-seed, which makes them salacious ; and when you observe the hen to sweep her tail to the cock, as he plays in the other pen, which is termed shewing, you may put her in to him, and they will soon be matched. " But if, for want of this convenience, you are obliged, at first, to put them both into one coop, always put the cock in first for a few days, that he may be the master of the place, especially if the hen le a virago; otherwise they will fight so much as perhaps may settle in them an absolute aversion for ever after. But the cock, being master, will beat the hen, if refractory, into compli- ance."* Females in general will put up with any treatment, rather than with indifference and neglect. A woman * Treatise, p. 13. CHAP. iv.J FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS. 145 was one day discoursing with me respecting the virtues of her husband : " 'E 's a werry good 'usband, Sir, a werry good 'usband indeed. To be sure, he do beat me now and then ; but you know, Sir, men must have a little reckeration ! " Pigeons are thirsty creatures ; they like the neigh- bourhood of water, and seem heartily to enjoy the act of drinking. This is performed by plunging the head in, nearly up to the eyes, and taking a full draught at once, instead of sipping like cocks and hens. In incubation, they will not sit, like hens, much beyond their proper time ; it is after the young have appeared that the as- siduity of the parents is most manifested. Shakspere beautifully describes the character that was "as patient as a female Dove When that her golden couplets are disclosed." " The attachment of Pigeons to the place where they have been bred is well known, and the pertinacity with which they will return to their former abode, even after the greatest care and pains have been bestowed on them, is often most extraordinary. In one case I knew a hen to fly back eight times to her old habitation, although at the distance of some miles ; and this bird could be easily identified, some one having drawn a slight line of scar- let paint round each eye, contrasting with her white head and neck. Pigeon dealers, some of whom are the great- est imaginable, will take advantage of this at- tachment to home ; and in one case I ascertained a bird to have been sold three times over, to as many different persons ! " Every year, exactly at the same time, viz. the be- ginning of July, the whole of our Pigeon stock, and also that of our neighbour, work most indefatigably at two 146 FOOD. [CHAP. ir. or three spots in our old pastures and park. What they get there I have never been able to ascertain, as there seem to be no available seeds of any kind to be had in these places. It is only for about a fortnight that the Pigeons frequent them. " Although our domestic Pigeons usually make use of only a moderate quantity of small sticks or straws in constructing their nests, yet there are occasionally a few curious exceptions. Last year I had a pair that took a fancy to build between some hurdles placed upright as a fence. Not being able to make a firm foundation, they first collected an immense mass of straw and other material, to fill up the space between them : after which they made the nest in the usual style." H. II. The usual food of domestic Pigeons is gray peas, but they will thrive also on wheat, barley, and the smaller pulse and grain. Tares are mostly too dear with us to feed them with. They are fond of the seeds of many wild plants, and no doubt render good service in pre- venting the increase of weeds in those fields which they frequent. A great treat to them is to throw out the rubbish, after a threshing of wheat or barley is dressed, on some lawn, or in some orchard, where it can do no harm. They will search days together amongst this for dross corn, poppy-seeds, &c., and get many a meal from the minute tit-bits that would be utterly lost to cocks and hens. Nor, as they do not scratch, are they inju- rious in gardens, unless their little foot-prints be thought an eye-sore. They will not disturb anything which the gardener has properly deposited in the ground, and what they do pick up is what otherwise would be wasted. Hemp-seed, so often recommended, is apt to bring on skin disease. CHAP, iv.] COMPARISON OF BREEDS. 147 The reader may here be disposed to ask, which is the most advisable sort of Pigeon to keep ; to which we re- ply that tastes differ ; please yourself without consulting others. If handsome, court-yard, table-birds are de- sired, we should much be disposed to recommend the larger breeds. But Runts, for some reason which is not very clear, are held in but little esteem in England. Fanciers disregard them because they are neither ele- gant in shape, beautiful in feather, nor pleasing in flight. Their size ought to recommend them for economical purposes, unless our climate, so unlike that of their native birth-place, the shores of the Mediterranean, is unfavourable to their profitable increase. But their great size makes them remarkable ornaments to the aviary, and their history, as far as we can guess at it, ought to attract the attention of the naturalist. " The Leghorn Runt," says the Treatise on Domestic Pigeons, " is a stately large Pigeon, some of them seven inches, or better; in legs, close feathered; and firm in flesh, extremely broad-chested, and very short in the back ; he carries his tail, when he walks, somewhat turned up, like a Duck's ; but when he plays, he tucks it down ; his neck is longer than any other Pigeon's, which he carries bending, like a Goose or a Swan. [Some of these particulars show an approach to the Fan tails.] He is Goose-headed, and his eye lies hollow in his head, with a thin skin round it much like the Dutch Turn- biers, but broader ; his beak is very short for so large a bird, with a small wattle (cere?) on it, and the upper chap a little bending over the under. Mr. Moore says they are a very tender bird, but I must beg leave to dissent from that opinion of them, having kept them several winters in a little shed or room, one side of which was entirely L 2 148 BUNTS AND TEUMPETEES. [CHAP. iv. open, and exposed to the easterly winds, with no other fence but a net, which kept them confined. Care should be taken of their young ones, for they rear but few in the season, if left to bring them up themselves ; there- fore it would be most proper to shift their eggs under a Dragoon, or some other good nurse, remembering to give them a young one to feed off their soft meat ; if this method be pursued, they will breed very well. " I have had a hen of the Leghorn breed that weighed two pounds two ounces avoirdupois weight; and have killed of their young ones which, when on the spit, were as large as middling spring fowls. It should be observed that these, and all other Runts, increase in bulk, till they are three or four years old. As to their feathers, they are various, but the best that T have seen were either white, black, or red-mottled. Leghorn Runts are more valued than any other sort of Runts, though there is a vast difference in them ; some of them being very bad ones, though brought from Leghorn." There does not appear to be any great distinction be- tween the Leghorn, Spanish, and Roman Runts. Some of the latter are so big and heavy that they can hardly fly, which circumstance, if not the result of domestica- tion, would account for their disappearance in a wild state. The Runt was well known to Aldrovandi. He gives a woodcut of it, rude, but characteristic, and with the tail famously tucked up. The Trumpeter belongs to that family of extra-sized Pigeons, the Runts, which are so little valued in this country, although speci- mens, when to be met with, are rarely cheap. It is a bird which many would call ugly, but is of striking appearance, from being so much larger than the Pigeons CHAP, iv.] COMPARISON OF BREEDS. 149 usually seen, as well as from its thickly-feathered feet and legs, and the military cut of its head. I quite be- lieve that it received its title of Trumpeter rather on account of the helmet-like crest at the back of the head, and the tuft of feathers at the base of the beak, which have very much the air of well-curled mustachios, than because its coo is specially sonorous or brazen. May not the word Trumpeter be a corruption of the Italian Tronfo, or Runt ? Temminck includes the Trumpeter in his brief account of the Pigeon Romain, or Runt, the Columba hispanica of Latham. He says, " Some of these are found rough-footed, with very long feathers on their toes, which seem to incommode the bird in its move- ments ; others are tufted, the only difference being in the feathers of the occiput, which are turned and set up." These have great claims on our favour from their classical associations : Turbits, Nuns, and Tumblers are both pretty and profitable ; but the Pigeon of greatest interest, a pure flock of which is almost an aristocrati- cal appendage to a mansion, is the bird which stands at the head of the following chapter. Blue Pock Pigeon (Columba lima). CHAPTER V. PIGEONS WHICH ARE BOTH DOMESTIC AND WILD. The Blue Rock Dove. Varro's account. Distinguished from Dovehouse Pigeons. Disposition. Experiment. Gregariousness. Crossing with Carriers. Less kept than formerly. Maritime haunts. Colonel Napier. Rock Pigeons in Sutherland. Differ in habits from Fancy Pigeons. Characteristic plumage. Productiveness. Quality of flesh. Dovehouse Pigeon. Indian Rock Pigeon. Mr. Blyth's account. Columba affinis. Question of distinctness. Pigeon matches. Apology. Numbers shot. Pigeon-shooting in France. Tempera- ture of the bird. Value as nurses. The Collared Turtle. Native haunts. Disposition. How far domestic. Escapades. Food. Pairing. Nesting and incubation. Education of the young. Severe discipline. Watchfulness. Voices. Interesting pets. Plumage and varieties. Hybrids. Heralds of Peace. The Irish Dove. WHEN there is no good standard translation of an author whose testimony is of importance on any dis- CHAP, v.] VARRO 'S ACCOUNT. 151 puted point, it is better to quote the passage in its original words than to incur any suspicion of having given a weak or warped rendering, after the example of Chaunteclere's explanation to the faire Damoiselle Perte- lote, as related by Chaucer: " For al so siker as In principle Mulier est hominis cotoftuio. (Madame, the sentence of this Latine is, Woman is mannes joye and mannes blis.) " We therefore quote here a few sentences from Varro, because two thousand years ago he recorded some pecu- liarities in the races of Domestic Pigeons (and other passages of similar import are to be found in other ancient authors) which appear to us to be opposed to, if not irreconcil cable with, the theories of some mo- dern naturalists. " Si unquam (HfMrti^W^o