When a newspaper tug starts down the bay for the yacht-races which are taking place just now, one of the principal articles taken aboard is the big basket filled with carrier-pigeons, and each bird has a brass band on its foot. At different times during the race messages are written on the thinnest of paper and made into small parcels. These are attached to the band, and the birds thrown up into the air. A pair are usually sent off together, as they fly better, it is thought, in that way.
For a moment they wheel about apparently dazed, poise themselves for perhaps a second, and then fly straight for home.
On one of these races from half an hour to thirty-five minutes was the longest time taken from the moment they were thrown into the air until they arrived at their destination, and the messages were taken from their feet. It was a beautiful sight, and a wondrous one, to see these birds arrive. Curiously enough, in some instances they brought back with them strange pigeons who had joined them on the trip, evidently much interested to know the outcome of the yacht-race. The strange birds did not stay at the cote after nightfall, and apparently felt themselves quite out of place with pigeons of such intelligence.
It is now well proved that carrier-pigeons can be used to good purpose, for the news of the yachts was by their aid conveyed much sooner to headquarters than otherwise would have been possible, and the question is now being discussed as to whether it will not be advisable for all ocean steamships to carry them, so that if any vessel were disabled at sea, and, as has often happened, met with no other steamer, by their means word might be sent back to shore. An interesting article on this very subject was published recently in one of the daily papers, giving an account of an experiment that was tried and with great success. Five thousand pigeons were put on board the Manoubia, sailing from Saint Nazaire, and at distances varying from one hundred to five hundred miles were liberated.
CARRIER-PIGEONS COMING TO THEIR COTE.
The results were beyond the most sanguine hopes, for within a shorter time than had been deemed possible they had all, almost without exception, returned to their pigeon-houses.
It would not mean a great addition, either in money or care, to have these birds on every ship that left the port, and certainly great good might be done and endless anxiety saved in many instances, if intelligence as to a disabled ship's whereabouts could reach her owners.
In order to make carrier-pigeons at home in any place they must be taken there very young. Even birds six weeks old will make their way back to the nest, the instant they are liberated, as distance is as nothing to them. One pair sent out to Wilmington, Delaware, were kept shut up for six weeks, fed and watered with the utmost care and regularity. The seventh week they were set free, and at once disappeared. Their owner telegraphed to their old home, and received an answer that the birds had arrived there before his telegram was received.
One pair of the pigeons, which were named Annie Rooney and McGinty, were given to a boy of eleven who lives in New York city. They were very young when they were given to him, and he determined to train them so that they would always make their home at his house. For six weeks he kept them in his room in a mocking-bird cage, and was very careful about the food and water. In the day-time he put the cage outside the window, and when it rained covered it with a cloth, for pigeons, while they use a great deal of water both to bathe in and to drink, do not like to be out in the rain.