PIGEONS. 298

pheses’, who tells us that Taurosthenes, by a pigeon stained
with purple, gave notice of his having been victor at the
Olympic games on the very same day to his father at Atgina.
Pliny informs us that during the siege of Modena by Marc
Antony, pigeons were employed by Brutus to keep up a cor-
respondence with the besieged. When the city of Ptolemais,
in Syria, was invested by the French and Venetians, and it
was ready to fall into their hands, they observed a pigeon
flying over them, and immediately conjectured that it was
charged with letters to the garrison. On this, the whole army
raising a loud shout, so confounded the poor aérial post that
it fell to the ground, and on being seized, a letter was found
under its wings, from the sultan, in which he assured the
garrison that ‘he would be with them in three days, with an
army sufficient to raise the siege.’ For this letter the besiegers
substituted another to this purpose, ‘that the garrison must
see to their own safety, for the sultan had such other affairs
pressing him that it was impossible for him to come to their
succour ;’ and with this false intelligence they let the pigeon
free to pursue his course. The garrison, deprived by this
decree of all hope of relief, immediately surrendered. The
sultan appeared on the third day, as promised, with a power-
ful army, and was not a little mortified to find the city already
in the hands of the Christians. Carrier pigeons were again
employed, but with better success, at the siege of Leyden, in
1675. The garrison were, by means of the information thus
conveyed to them, induced to stand out, till the enemy,
despairing of reducing the place, withdrew. On the siege
being raised, the Prince of Orange ordered that the pigeons
who had rendered such essential service should be maintained
at the public expense, and that at their death they should be
embalmed and preserved in the town house, as a perpetual
token of gratitude.”

Pigeons on Pigeons are said to travel as fast as 2,200 yards

the Wing. per minute and to sustain flight for hundreds of