In the first place, the "loft," as the pigeon-cote is called, should be lofty. The birds are very keen of vision, it is true, but so great a tax is made upon their keenness that we should aid them all we can; therefore build your cote so high that it can be readily distinguished among surrounding objects.
As they are likely to return from a flight at any hour, the loft must be so arranged as to admit the birds at all times, while egress is permitted only at the owner's pleasure. Either or both of two very simple devices will meet this need. One is a square opening in the roof large enough to allow the passage within of a bird with folded wings, but too small to permit its outward flight with wings spread. The other is a wire drop door, which yields easily to pressure from the outside, and falling after the pigeon has entered, keeps him a prisoner.
Having prepared the loft, in buying be careful to select only young birds. Old ones, if good for anything, will upon the first opportunity return to the home from which you have taken them. Remember, in training, that the simple secret of success lies in teaching your bird to know its home and its vicinity thoroughly.
To aid you in this, let your cote be provided with a broad wire-inclosed ledge, from which the pigeons may have an uninterrupted view of the neighborhood even while confined. Their education may begin as soon as they are grown. Commence it by carrying them half a mile from home in a covered basket, and loosing them by tossing well up in the air. If made of the right stuff, they will rise high enough to command a good view, then fly directly to the loft. Should any fail to do so, they are little loss to the brood, and had far better show their uselessness at an early stage of their training than later. So waste no time in regrets over any such good-for-naughts; they are not worth it.
Those that return should be taken out again, the day following, about the same distance, but in a different direction, and this process continued until they are perfectly familiar with all the landmarks within half a mile of home. When this has been accomplished, half the battle is won.
The distances may then be increased, by one or two mile stages, up to ten miles, always loosing the birds hungry. From ten miles advance by five-mile steps to twenty-five miles, and thence by ten-mile increases to fifty miles. Long flights must be gone over by longer or shorter stages, depending upon the smartness of the pigeon in training. It is almost useless to expect one to reach home over a wholly unknown route. The probabilities are that some of the birds will fail to reach the cote in almost every flight. This is to be expected, and the young trainer may be reconciled to their loss by the thought that those that have returned have proved themselves all the more worthy of his care and instruction.
Their speed is almost beyond belief, thirty, sixty, and even ninety miles an hour being recorded of them—a rate which would carry one across the Atlantic in three days.
Aside from the pure sport derived from their rearing, the practical uses to which their intelligence may be put are very many.
During the siege of Paris a daily pigeon-post was established, by means of which persons within the beleaguered city were enabled to correspond with friends without.
The messages, were printed and photographed microscopically upon a very thin film of paper, which was rolled in a quill, and fastened to the leg or one of the tail feathers. At intervals numbers of the pigeons were returned in balloons, so that constant communication was had. Country doctors in England long employed carriers to convey medicines to distant patients, and only a few days since it was announced that the Prussian government had determined to make use of them in the coasting service to establish communication with the light-ships lying off the coast of the North Sea. Since 1876 experiments with them have been made with great success. Such communication is of the utmost importance not only to the light-ships themselves, but to incoming vessels that may be in distress. Birds are being bred and trained especially for this service, and a number have made the distance from light-ship to shore—thirty-five miles—in thirty minutes, and that in the face of a heavy gale. News of distress can be thus sent to the land with the greatest dispatch and under circumstances when life may depend upon the loss of a moment; a single "homer" may be the means of saving a crew.