(2567)
The queer Chinese change pigeons into song-birds by fastening whistles to their breasts. The wind of their flight then causes a weird and plaintive music that is seldom silenced in the pigeon-haunted cities of Peking and Canton. The Belgians, great pigeon-fliers, fasten whistles beneath the wings of valuable racing carriers, claiming that the shrill noise is a sure protection against hawks and other birds of prey. As a similar protection, reeds, emitting an odd wailing sound, are fixt to the tail-feathers of the dispatch-bearing pigeons of the German army.
Hannibal’s army withdrew from Rome, it is said, at the sound of a tumultuous laughter inside the walls. Luther said: “The devil hates music.” (Text.)
(2568)
Paul speaks of a breast-plate even more secure than that mentioned in the extract:
The authors who tell us of the conquests of Cortez say that to protect his soldiers from the arrows of the Mexicans, which could pierce the cuirasses of hammered iron that they wore, he replaced these with thick breast-plates of wool prest between two layers of linen. In fact, he practically covered his men with mattresses, and they were thus enabled to defy the arrows and lances of the Mexicans. (Text.)—Dr. Battandier, Cosmos.
(2569)