LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
PIGEON -RACIN G.—I.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR...)
SIR,—My attention was drawn last week to the account of Pigeon- racing in Belgium, given by a Brussels correspondent of the Field, and reproduced in the Times. Being mys lf a great lover of the Belgian flying-pigeons, having known them from early youth, I intended asking your leave to introduce the subject in its broader aspects to your readers, as embracing a circle more general than that of sportsmen in particular. Let me own that I earnestly wish pigeon-flying might find its way among the national amuse- ments of Englishmen, and especially of English boys.
The habits of the flying-pigeon are very remarkable, and the cultivation of these pigeons by boys is particularly desirable, physically, intellectually, and, I would say, morally, if I cared for tall words. Physically, the culture of flying-pigeons has one re- markable advantage. Flying-pigeons are generally housed as high above the ground as possible. They also naturally fly high, and the moment a boy takes any interest in his pigeons, his great delight is to watch on the housetop their movements, flight, and general habits. This involves much craning upwards, the shoulders are well thrown back, the chest expands without effort, and free draughts of air are taken insensibly for hours in fine weather. Meanwhile, thought and imagination are fully exercised, and the eyesight trained in a very remarkable degree. In all this I speak from actual experience, having kept flying-pigeons when I was a boy, and like all those who keep flying-pigeons, having been de- voted to them with an intensity rarely attending other pursuits of an equally innocent character.
The keeping of most other pets—except race-horses, perhaps— is tame in comparison for many reasons, but especially because the pigeon to be good must be free, and proud, and wild, and the boy must be not his tyrant, but his wise and intel- ligent custodian. Intellectually, it is difficult to conceive the tending of any creature that is calculated to exercise a boy's faculties in a more natural and desirable way. All kinds of philo- sophical speculations spring fresh and living from the nature of the case. Thus, why should a pigeon, of all birds, hardly out of his nest, and within a few weeks of his birth, bear transportation to 20, 30, 100, nay, perhaps one might in some instances say, 200 or 300 miles, in a blind basket, and on being let loose, so far as he is concerned, in any one of the four corners of heaven, find his way back to his cot in less time than an express train ? here is a romantic fact, a striking fact, to a boy's mind a gigantic fact, one which sets him thinking of the matter day after day, and comparing flying-pigeons with all the fowls of the air, the beasts of the earth, and the fishes of the sea. Then why do some of his pigeons not come back at all? What happened to them? These are endless fields of practical conjecture.
Why, he asks, of all the pigeons of the earth, why is it only a certain breed of pigeons that will perform these mysterious feats, and why should they, more than other pigeons, have this astounding faculty? Then what of the whole question of migratory birds ? Your flying-pigeon is not a migratory bird. He betrays not the slightest symptom of any inclination to migrate at any season of the year. A nightingale born in captivity will (I believe, for I have not seen it), at the migratory season of the year betray the most intense anxiety and nervous irritability until the migratory season is over. A flying-pigeon knows no anxiety but a dogged determination to find his way home to a particular spot, wherever his home may be, it matters not whether London or the Isle of Skye, Portugal or Austria, Japan or America. But are there not migratory pigeons? Certainly, but then—astonish- ing reflection to the boyish mind !—migratory pigeons are pre- cisely worthless for flying purposes. And so on, and so on,—a perfect school of living natural history and broad speculation.
I have tried in a few words to show the wealth of dis- quisition suitable to a boy's mind which the tending of fly- ing-pigeons naturally begets. Children, again, as a rule, are careless of distance expressed in any great number of miles ; five, six, twenty miles they understand, but when it comes to the relation between hundreds of miles, these distances affect their imaginations very little. But after they have taken to flying-pigeons, and their birds are sent to places thirty, fifty, three hundred miles off, when they wait in breathless expec- tation to see these birds return, half-wild with doubt and half- crazed with delight at the notion of their birds performing such tremendous feats, the question of the exact distance of particular towns from their own locality is canvassed with as much care as the price of a bat or a ball.
Morally, if I must return to the word, there is everything to recommend the habits of the pigeon. He leads a married life, and is remarkably faithful in his conjugal relations. His manners are exceedingly becoming. Occasionally, no doubt, a cause célèbre becomes one of the great land-marks in pigeon annals, and I remember the intense disgust with which I discovered, as a boy, that a bird of mine—he was a very vain fellow—had taken up with a female in the neighbouring town. But such cases are rare, so far as the pigeons are left to themselves. Then there is the love pigeons have for their home, and the extraordinary endurance and heroism they display in making their way back when they might find easy welcome in a thousand different places. This is an element which takes the strongest possible hold upon a boy's heart and imagination, and, indeed, of older men. Some time ago I was visiting the pigeons of a leading " colombophile " at Liege. "There," he said, "is a little hen—ugly little screw, isn't she ?—well, I thought her a weed when she was a couple of months old, and I drafted her off for sixpence to the pigeon- shooting at Hurlinghass. However, she came back again with her tail shot off. I have kept her ever since," he added quietly ; "I hadn't the heart to part with her again." I have always been moved at the recollection of the young " squeaker," who was sent some hundred miles away to compete in a great race, from Verviers, in Belgium. The first bird came home the same day, and got the first prize. Our " squeaker " only returned the third day, but he dropped down dead on the housetop. His feathers were removed, and it was found that he was as red as a lobster, from the violent exertions he had made. 1 should say here that modern pigeon science has put an end to all such strain upon young birds, as being injurious to their future prowess. It is very unusual now to send young birds more than 300 miles in their first year, and so great has been the development of the powers of the breed in Belgium during the last fifty years, that pigeons which fifty years ago would hardly have been believed capable of flying two hundred miles, are now sent, as a matter of course, to more than two, three, and four times that distance. To return. A boy's imagination is morally affected in many ways,—I speak from recollection and personal experience. He feels an unbounded pride in the pluck, tenacity, and pride of his tirds, and he feels an unbounded contempt for the weak- ness of those straylings who allow themselves to be seduced on their way home by the blandishments of other pigeon-cots or the hardships of the way. I use the word " pride " designedly, as applied also to the pigeons themselves, for with all his apparent gentleness, the true flying-pigeon, when in proper condition, is an exceedingly proud bird and of remarkably fine carriage ; to the practised eye, he shows as much difference from the ordinary pigeon of other breeds an a blood-horse from a butcher's nag.
I might add to this rough picture ;—but I think I have said enough to show that the culture of flying-pigeons is one which no parent, however fastidious, need be anxious to discourage in his children. As to the question of expense, a pigeon ought to cost, I imagine, in this country, from a farthing to a halfpenny a day. If I am not misinformed, that is, I think, Mr. Tegetmeier's, the great authority's, estimate. If we take a farthing a day, this would amount to 7s. 70. a year for each bird. Sup- posing him to keep three couples, six pigeons, that would cost him £2 13s. 1-td. per annum, which may not be thought too much for most boys' amusement. It is true, each couple ought to pro- duce three pair of young a year, and there is the feeding of the
young ones. On the other hand, account must be taken of losses- by accident and otherwise, so that the keeping of the young is a matter within hand. Three couples, it must be confessed, though enough for amusement, is a small team. But I will take what I consider to be perhaps the best team for a boy, twelve old birds at a farthing a head; this would cost inside £5 a year. Given a family of boys, it might be that only one boy cared for pigeons, but more generally boys of a certain age would all take as a matter of course to the birds in common, and £5 a year for the amusement of all one's boys can hardly be deemed excessive. Compared with most other amusements to which English boys are accustomed, I daresay it may be thought mode- rate enough. There is, of course, a large class of persons to whom, if they were satisfied with the character of the amusement their children derived, neither £5 nor £50 would be any object. In the country, if the food could be grown and not bought, it would be much cheaper, and during certain months the birds are better for catering for themselves. Farmers could keep their pigeons practically cost-free. To my mind, the difficulty that might arise in England is rather a mechanical one, namely, that of keeping the pigeon-house so clean as not to disturb the house- hold, if the pigeons are kept in the house, where they generally house best, under the roof in the loft. Boys, we know, rather like dirt, parents not so much, and if we consider the care it takes to keep a canary-cage clean, it becomes pretty evident that twelve birds of the size and activity of pigeons must require propor- tionate care and attention in point of cleanliness, or the result will be distressing ; insects will breed, and clothes be ruined.
In Belgium, where pigeon-flying may be. described as the
national sport, it is almost entirely in the hands of the lower classes and the smaller shopkeepers. The higher classes dis courage the taste in their children. It is thought unfashionable, Occasionally, no doubt, persons belonging to the upper classes- do keep flying-pigeons, but as a rule there is a very marked line of demarcation. Thus a working-man who has kept flying- pigeons all his life, however much he may have been devoted to them, if he "betters himself," the first symptom of his rise in the world is to get rid of his pigeons. One can hardly repress a smile at so quaint an illustration of social logic on a national scale, and. in a tolerably Radical country, too.
We in this country nee not be troubled with any such distinc- tions. The marvel is rather how it happens that the Belgian work-- ing-classes are able to spend all the money they do upon their birds. The Brussels correspondent of the Field calculates that Belgium, possesses at least one million and a quarter of birds, of an aggregate value of one million and a half sterling. At a farthing a head these birds must cost the Belgian workmen something like half a million sterling a year. Possibly they cost them more, for where amuse- ment, emulation, and possible gain (the prizes are numerous) com- bine, men are easily tempted to spend more than the barely necessary.
I do not see myself that the question of cleanliness need trouble English people much, if they take the pains to see that the pigeon-house is so constructed as to admit of being readily cleansed. English modern appliances of every kind for the comfort and cleanliness of bird and beast are so great, that if flying-pigeons were once in any degree to become one of the pursuits of any part of the population, we should soon have a variety of model pigeon-houses specially adapted to the question of cleanliness, and turned out at the lowest cost by our manufac- turers. The offer of a single prize at some of our pigeon-shows, with proper directions by some competent authority, would infal- libly produce the article required.
In the meantime, private ingenuity may be trusted to provide for itself, and as the efficiency of the birds must depend largely, czteris paribus, on the way in which they are kept, boys would soon learn that to keep their birds clean is one of the essentials; of success. This letter is already unduly long, but if the subject in- terests you, I shall have more to say.—I am, Sir, t!tc., PIGEON.
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