<h3><SPAN name="HOMING_PIGEON" id="HOMING_PIGEON"></SPAN>HOMING PIGEON.</h3>
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<div class="verse">Sleep little pigeon and fold your wings,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes.</div>
<div class="verse">Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Swinging the nest where her little one lies.</div>
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<div class="verse">In through the window a moonbeam comes,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Little gold moonbeam with misty wings,</div>
<div class="verse">All silently creeping it asks is he sleeping,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Sleeping and dreaming while mother sings?</div>
<div class="verse">But sleep little pigeon and fold your wings,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Little blue pigeon with mournful eyes.</div>
<div class="verse">Am I not singing? See I am swinging,</div>
<div class="verse indent-2">Swinging the nest where my darling lies.</div>
<div class="verse ar">—Eugene Field.</div>
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<p>ONE day a carrier pigeon tapped at
the window of Mrs. Nansen's home at
Christiania. Instantly the window was
opened, and the wife of the great Arctic
explorer in another moment covered the
little messenger with kisses and caresses.
The carrier pigeon had been away from
the cottage thirty long months, but had
not forgotten the way home. It brought
a note from Nansen, stating that all was
going well with his expedition in the
polar regions. Nansen had fastened a
message to the bird and turned it loose.
The frail courier darted out into the Arctic
air, flew like an arrow over perhaps a
thousand miles of frozen waste, and then
over another thousand miles of ocean and
plain and forest, to enter the window of
its waiting mistress and deliver the message
which she had been awaiting so
anxiously. We boast of human sagacity
and endurance, but this loving carrier
pigeon, after an absence of thirty months,
accomplished a feat so wonderful that we
can only give ourselves up to wonder and
admiration.</p>
<p>Utilization of the homing instinct of
the domesticated varieties of the Blue
Rock pigeon, the <i>columba livia</i>, by employing
the birds as messengers for physicians
living at some distance from their
patients, is comparatively new and is the
latest evidence of the value of these
birds. A few doctors have made the experiment,
and it only remains to prove
the facility with which the pigeons can be
employed in order to determine whether
they are likely to come into general use
for this purpose.</p>
<p>The importance of establishing pigeon
service for busy, overworked country
doctors is strongly urged in favor of the
plan, and it is agreed that there is no
other such efficient or speedy means of
carrying messages.</p>
<p>The carrier dove, which is the emblem
of peace, though used in these times for
carrying war messages, obeys the one
governing impulse of its small heart
when, released at a distance from its
mate and its nest, it turns with marvelous
fidelity to its home cote. With no
compass except that home-seeking instinct,
no reliance except in the exquisitely
adjusted beat of its wings, it soars
upward until its keen eyesight and quick
perceptions give certainty of direction;
then, at a splendid pace of 1,400 yards in
a minute, it speeds on its journey home.</p>
<p class="ac p2">MATED BIRDS THE BEST.</p>
<p>Once a male bird has regularly mated
he will fly back to his duties as a husband
and father as fast as he can. These duties
are serious and practical, for the
male bird bears his full share in sitting
upon the eggs and in feeding the nestlings
when hatched, for which purpose
both cock and hen possess special faculties
and functions. The homing tendency
acts best when it is entirely concentrated.
For example, it has been found that a
mated pair will not fly home together
with anything like proper certainty. They
stop and dally by the way; they behave
like holiday people who have "got somebody
to mind the babies."</p>
<p>In order to have trustworthy messengers
for war or peace the pigeons must
not be bachelors nor loafers nor be flown
with associates; they must be the respectable
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</SPAN></span>
mated birds with establishments, so
that in employing them for war messengers
one actually presses domestic virtue,
as well as love and parental instinct, into
the service of the military.</p>
<p>But even the peaceful pigeon can be
sometimes pugnacious on his own account,
and a jealous fantail, or tumbler, or
Antwerp, or Jacobin often will conduct
himself like a game cock, though painters
and poets from time immemorial have
agreed to regard this bird as the natural
emblem of gentleness and peace. It is the
accepted token of the Holy Spirit, "which
descended in the form of a dove." All literatures
are full of this thought.</p>
<p class="ac p2">PIGEONS IN LEGEND AND STORY.</p>
<p>The Arabs have a story that when an
angel of Allah offered to King Solomon
the water of immortality in a ruby cup it
was a dove that dissuaded him from
drinking it, and thereby from living
mournfully to survive those whom he
loved in an earth grown desolate and
lonely. And it was because of the maternal
courage of a dove which had followed
its captive nestlings all the way to
the prophet's house that Mohammed instituted
that merciful decree which still prevails
all over the East, and which forbids
true believers to touch or even to taste of
the flesh of any creature which has not
been "hallalled"; that is to say, over
which, while alive, the prayer of pardonable
bloodshed has not been uttered.</p>
<p>The birds, gentle and stainless, which
Sappho sang of, harnessed to the golden
chariot of the "Splendor-throned Queen,
immortal Aphrodite," in some cases have
been converted into messengers of death
and ruin. Some hold that this is better
than to see them immolated for prizes by
unsportsmanlike gunners at Monte Carlo
and such places, for the birds remain unaware
of their new duties, and carry messages
from a beleaguered fortress, or the
call for aid from a sinking warship, or the
state of a suffering patient, alike carelessly
and ignorantly, as if the missives tied
to their feet were perfumed messages sent
by lovers.</p>
<p class="ac p2">USED BY PHYSICIANS.</p>
<p>In the early '90s Dr. S. Weir Mitchell
of Philadelphia used pigeons in the case
of a patient ill of nerve fatigue, several
miles from his home, thus accomplishing
two purposes—a daily report and the salutary
effect of leading the worn mind of
the patient into a new channel.</p>
<p>Dr. Philip Arnold, in a recent medical
journal, tells of receiving messages from
his patients in the country every day, in
addition to his daily visits to them. His
plan usually is to leave a pigeon the day
he makes a visit, and direct that the
pigeon be liberated the next day with
such a message as he requires. With a
little care in the instruction of the nurse,
he is informed of the condition of the patient
before he starts to make his next
visit. In a country practice this is important,
since it enables the physician to
judge what will be needed for his patient
in the next twenty-four hours, and the
country physician usually is his own
druggist.</p>
<p>Then, again, country doctors cannot
often make more than one call on a patient
in twenty-four hours, and by an
aerial messenger service they can get
practically the same information as the
doctors in the city or hospital practice by
leaving two pigeons and getting morning
and evening reports. The country doctor
often is called from one patient to other
persons sick in the neighborhood. This
will make him late in getting back, and it
is a great convenience if he can send this
information home, practically with the
same speed as the city practitioner
through the medium of the telephone service.</p>
<p class="ac p2">TELLS WHAT KIND TO USE.</p>
<p>Dr. Arnold suggests that physicians
wishing to take this matter up in earnest
first of all should purchase only the best
of Belgian homing pigeons, one or two
pairs well mated. No reliance can be
placed on young birds newly purchased
for message carriers. Young birds, to be
of service, must have been hatched in the
home loft. The old birds secured for
breeding must not be given their liberty
until they have hatched one or two
broods. The youngsters at a certain age
can be trained.</p>
<p>A young pigeon begins his racing life
when he is ten weeks old, with graduated
journeys, varying from two to fifty and
seventy miles in length. At the age of
six months he is usually fed on a diet of
beans and maple peas for a few months
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</SPAN></span>
of hard racing work, the season commencing
in April. The length of the races
varies from 50 or 100 to as much as 600
miles. There is not competition between
rival fanciers and great excitement about
the results.</p>
<p>Winter is the pigeon's time of retirement.
He is not compelled to race, for
racing is only profitable when wind is fair
and the air is absolutely clear. Whatever
the wonderful power that guides the
pigeon home over hundreds of miles of
unknown country, it is certain that sight
plays an important part, for the least sign
of haziness in the air will put the pigeon
in the position of a derelict ship.</p>
<p>A bird of good quality costs from $5
to $20 when one month old, and a practiced
racer one year old generally brings
from $25 to $100.</p>
<p>When using these birds for messenger
service the message is written upon the
thinnest rice paper, rolled up and deposited
in an aluminum holder, which is fastened
to the bird's leg. This holder is
in the shape of a capsule, with a small
band which is easily attached to the leg of
the bird. Professor Marion of the Naval
Academy at Annapolis invented the holder,
which is water tight when the lid is
on, and weighs but eight grains. One of
the most remarkable incidents illustrating
the wonderful memory of a homing
pigeon was that of a bird made a prisoner
during the Franco-Prussian war. This
pigeon after being in captivity for ten
years immediately returned to its home
after being liberated from confinement in
a foreign country.</p>
<p>The hardships which these birds will
unflinchingly face in returning home can
hardly be appreciated by those who are
not familiar with them. Birds so badly
shot or torn by hawks as to be rendered
almost helpless, notwithstanding their injuries
will struggle onward until at last
their home is reached. From extreme
distances, such as points beyond 500
miles, the birds are at a great disadvantage,
inasmuch as they are thereby forced
to forage for themselves, something they
are not trained to do. As a result they
are unreliable and slow when called upon
for such work. There are birds which
have homed 614 miles air line the day after,
and there are a few pigeons in this
country that have covered more than
1,000 miles, air line, the extreme distance
covered being 1,212 miles.</p>
<p>It seems really impossible to extinguish
the homing instinct in a good pigeon. A
story is told of a French carrier pigeon
which was captured by the German soldiers
during the siege of Paris in 1870.
The bird was being carried in a balloon
from Paris to some point in the country,
whence it was expected to return to Paris
with a message. It was taken to the German
headquarters and presented to the
commander, Prince Frederick Charles,
who sent it to his mother in Germany.
Here it was placed in a splendid roomy
aviary and carefully fed and nourished;
but, although it was kept here, living in
the lap of royal luxury for four years, the
French pigeon did not forget its fatherland.</p>
<p>At the end of that time the aviary was
left open one day. The pigeon flew out,
mounted high in the air, flew about for a
moment, as if to find the points of the
compass and started in a straight line for
Paris. Ten days afterward it beat its
wings against the entrance to its old loft
in the Boulevard de Clichy. There it was
recognized and its case being brought to
public attention it was honored as a patriot
returned from foreign captivity. It
remained at the Paris Jardin d'Acclimatation
until it died in 1878.</p>
<p>In Belgium, where pigeon racing is as
great sport as horse racing is in England
and America, the birds have made a speed
of seventy miles an hour for short distances.
From thirty to forty miles an
hour, is, however, the average speed of
the average bird. Though not by nature
strong of wing or equipped for long
flight, the birds have been known to cover
great distances. Probably the longest
journey of which there is any record was
made some ten years ago. A family of
birds had been taken from Belgium to
New York, where they were to be bred
and trained. They were released from
the cote before they had been thoroughly
domesticated, and straightway disappeared.
Two weeks later three of the
pigeons, bedraggled, weary and nearly
dead, arrived at their native cote in Belgium.
How they had made the long
ocean voyage nobody ever knew, but they
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</SPAN></span>
had evidently accomplished it in some
manner, and, out of respect for their wonderful
achievement, they were allowed to
remain in the home to regain which they
had suffered so much.</p>
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<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.</td>
<td class="x-smaller ac w40">HOMING PIGEON.</td>
<td class="xx-smaller ac w30">COPYRIGHT 1900, BY<br/>
A. W. MUMFORD, CHICAGO.</td>
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<p>The <i>San Francisco Examiner</i> records
that "Sadie Jones, C. 21,392," is the
champion long-distance homing pigeon of
America, and the world, so far as is
known. She flew from Lake Charles,
Louisiana, to Philadelphia, a distance of
1,202 12-100 miles in 16 days and 3 hours.
Sadie Jones is the property of M. S. Sullivan,
of West Philadelphia, and was five
years of age at the time of making the
record. She was named after the daughter
of the National Race Secretary,
Charles H. Jones, and was personally
countermarked and shipped by that young
lady, together with five others. She was
the only one to return. So far as known
no other pigeon has ever flown this distance.</p>
<p>When the writer was many years
younger, to please the rising generation
he made a dove cote and procured a few
tame pigeons. In the course of time the
birds had increased by not only rearing
young, but by inducing strange birds to
accept the quarters offered. The pigeons
were regularly fed, the meal hour being
announced by a peculiar whistle. The
dinner call was soon known to all the
birds in the place, and the yard would immediately
fill with birds from every direction
when the whistle was blown. On
one occasion a lame bird in the flock,
which had evidently been caught in a
snare and escaped with a slip noose on
one leg that had cut into the flesh, making
the poor bird very lame, came with the
rest.</p>
<p>After considerable pains the bird was
caught, the string cut, and the bird placed
on the ground. It stood a moment as if
amazed, and then flew up to its liberator's
knee and fed out of his hand.</p>
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