Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1877 — Carrier-Pigeons. [ARTICLE]

Carrier-Pigeons.

A curious item in the military estimates of the greater military powers of Europe is the sum now set down annually for the providing and maintenance of a certain number of pigeonbreeding establishments and houses. The large German fortresses of Cologne, Metz, Mayence, Strasburg,and others are all supplied with a complement of pigeons, and in France great efforts have been and still are being made to insure that there shall be a good stock of these birds in every garrison town. The idea which hail been frequently mooted of utilizing carrier-pigeons as the bearers of military dispatches was first worked out in practice during the investments of Paris and Metz in the late Franco-Ger-man war. So vigilant was the watch kept by the Germans over all the approaches leading into the fortresses that, in fact, no other messengers could enter the beleagured towns. Pigeons could be trusted, under certain easily fulfilled conditions, to return with all speed to their homes; and, consequently, numbers of them were taken out of Paris in balloons, tto be subsequently laden With dispatches, with which they then returned to the capital. At first the messages were tied round the necks of the pigeons ; but it was found that when this was done many of the birds returned without their dispatches, having probably got rid of them themselves during their flight. The plan was therefore adopted of reducing the dispatches, by the aid of photography, to the smallest possible dimensions, and inclosing them in a quill, which was then fastened under one of the larger feathers of the pigeon’s wing. By this means not only was the loss of the dispatches avoided, but they were also protected from partial destruction or obliteration by the weather.