ONE day a carrier pigeon tapped at the window of Mrs. Nansen's home at Christiania. Instantly the window was opened, and the wife of the great Arctic explorer in another moment covered the little messenger with kisses and caresses. The carrier pigeon had been away from the cottage thirty long months, but had not forgotten the way home. It brought a note from Nansen, stating that all was going well with his expedition in the polar regions. Nansen had fastened a message to the bird and turned it loose. The frail courier darted out into the Arctic air, flew like an arrow over perhaps a thousand miles of frozen waste, and then over another thousand miles of ocean and plain and forest, to enter the window of its waiting mistress and deliver the message which she had been awaiting so anxiously. We boast of human sagacity and endurance, but this loving carrier pigeon, after an absence of thirty months, accomplished a feat so wonderful that we can only give ourselves up to wonder and admiration.

Utilization of the homing instinct of the domesticated varieties of the Blue Rock pigeon, the columba livia, by employing the birds as messengers for physicians living at some distance from their patients, is comparatively new and is the latest evidence of the value of these birds. A few doctors have made the experiment, and it only remains to prove the facility with which the pigeons can be employed in order to determine whether they are likely to come into general use for this purpose.

The importance of establishing pigeon service for busy, overworked country doctors is strongly urged in favor of the plan, and it is agreed that there is no other such efficient or speedy means of carrying messages.

The carrier dove, which is the emblem of peace, though used in these times for carrying war messages, obeys the one governing impulse of its small heart when, released at a distance from its mate and its nest, it turns with marvelous fidelity to its home cote. With no compass except that home-seeking instinct, no reliance except in the exquisitely adjusted beat of its wings, it soars upward until its keen eyesight and quick perceptions give certainty of direction; then, at a splendid pace of 1,400 yards in a minute, it speeds on its journey home.

MATED BIRDS THE BEST.

Once a male bird has regularly mated he will fly back to his duties as a husband and father as fast as he can. These duties are serious and practical, for the male bird bears his full share in sitting upon the eggs and in feeding the nestlings when hatched, for which purpose both cock and hen possess special faculties and functions. The homing tendency acts best when it is entirely concentrated. For example, it has been found that a mated pair will not fly home together with anything like proper certainty. They stop and dally by the way; they behave like holiday people who have "got somebody to mind the babies."

In order to have trustworthy messengers for war or peace the pigeons must not be bachelors nor loafers nor be flown with associates; they must be the respectable mated birds with establishments, so that in employing them for war messengers one actually presses domestic virtue, as well as love and parental instinct, into the service of the military.

But even the peaceful pigeon can be sometimes pugnacious on his own account, and a jealous fantail, or tumbler, or Antwerp, or Jacobin often will conduct himself like a game cock, though painters and poets from time immemorial have agreed to regard this bird as the natural emblem of gentleness and peace. It is the accepted token of the Holy Spirit, "which descended in the form of a dove." All literatures are full of this thought.

PIGEONS IN LEGEND AND STORY.

The Arabs have a story that when an angel of Allah offered to King Solomon the water of immortality in a ruby cup it was a dove that dissuaded him from drinking it, and thereby from living mournfully to survive those whom he loved in an earth grown desolate and lonely. And it was because of the maternal courage of a dove which had followed its captive nestlings all the way to the prophet's house that Mohammed instituted that merciful decree which still prevails all over the East, and which forbids true believers to touch or even to taste of the flesh of any creature which has not been "hallalled"; that is to say, over which, while alive, the prayer of pardonable bloodshed has not been uttered.

The birds, gentle and stainless, which Sappho sang of, harnessed to the golden chariot of the "Splendor-throned Queen, immortal Aphrodite," in some cases have been converted into messengers of death and ruin. Some hold that this is better than to see them immolated for prizes by unsportsmanlike gunners at Monte Carlo and such places, for the birds remain unaware of their new duties, and carry messages from a beleaguered fortress, or the call for aid from a sinking warship, or the state of a suffering patient, alike carelessly and ignorantly, as if the missives tied to their feet were perfumed messages sent by lovers.

USED BY PHYSICIANS.

In the early '90s Dr. S. Weir Mitchell of Philadelphia used pigeons in the case of a patient ill of nerve fatigue, several miles from his home, thus accomplishing two purposes—a daily report and the salutary effect of leading the worn mind of the patient into a new channel.

Dr. Philip Arnold, in a recent medical journal, tells of receiving messages from his patients in the country every day, in addition to his daily visits to them. His plan usually is to leave a pigeon the day he makes a visit, and direct that the pigeon be liberated the next day with such a message as he requires. With a little care in the instruction of the nurse, he is informed of the condition of the patient before he starts to make his next visit. In a country practice this is important, since it enables the physician to judge what will be needed for his patient in the next twenty-four hours, and the country physician usually is his own druggist.

Then, again, country doctors cannot often make more than one call on a patient in twenty-four hours, and by an aerial messenger service they can get practically the same information as the doctors in the city or hospital practice by leaving two pigeons and getting morning and evening reports. The country doctor often is called from one patient to other persons sick in the neighborhood. This will make him late in getting back, and it is a great convenience if he can send this information home, practically with the same speed as the city practitioner through the medium of the telephone service.

TELLS WHAT KIND TO USE.

Dr. Arnold suggests that physicians wishing to take this matter up in earnest first of all should purchase only the best of Belgian homing pigeons, one or two pairs well mated. No reliance can be placed on young birds newly purchased for message carriers. Young birds, to be of service, must have been hatched in the home loft. The old birds secured for breeding must not be given their liberty until they have hatched one or two broods. The youngsters at a certain age can be trained.

A young pigeon begins his racing life when he is ten weeks old, with graduated journeys, varying from two to fifty and seventy miles in length. At the age of six months he is usually fed on a diet of beans and maple peas for a few months of hard racing work, the season commencing in April. The length of the races varies from 50 or 100 to as much as 600 miles. There is not competition between rival fanciers and great excitement about the results.

Winter is the pigeon's time of retirement. He is not compelled to race, for racing is only profitable when wind is fair and the air is absolutely clear. Whatever the wonderful power that guides the pigeon home over hundreds of miles of unknown country, it is certain that sight plays an important part, for the least sign of haziness in the air will put the pigeon in the position of a derelict ship.

A bird of good quality costs from $5 to $20 when one month old, and a practiced racer one year old generally brings from $25 to $100.

When using these birds for messenger service the message is written upon the thinnest rice paper, rolled up and deposited in an aluminum holder, which is fastened to the bird's leg. This holder is in the shape of a capsule, with a small band which is easily attached to the leg of the bird. Professor Marion of the Naval Academy at Annapolis invented the holder, which is water tight when the lid is on, and weighs but eight grains. One of the most remarkable incidents illustrating the wonderful memory of a homing pigeon was that of a bird made a prisoner during the Franco-Prussian war. This pigeon after being in captivity for ten years immediately returned to its home after being liberated from confinement in a foreign country.

The hardships which these birds will unflinchingly face in returning home can hardly be appreciated by those who are not familiar with them. Birds so badly shot or torn by hawks as to be rendered almost helpless, notwithstanding their injuries will struggle onward until at last their home is reached. From extreme distances, such as points beyond 500 miles, the birds are at a great disadvantage, inasmuch as they are thereby forced to forage for themselves, something they are not trained to do. As a result they are unreliable and slow when called upon for such work. There are birds which have homed 614 miles air line the day after, and there are a few pigeons in this country that have covered more than 1,000 miles, air line, the extreme distance covered being 1,212 miles.

It seems really impossible to extinguish the homing instinct in a good pigeon. A story is told of a French carrier pigeon which was captured by the German soldiers during the siege of Paris in 1870. The bird was being carried in a balloon from Paris to some point in the country, whence it was expected to return to Paris with a message. It was taken to the German headquarters and presented to the commander, Prince Frederick Charles, who sent it to his mother in Germany. Here it was placed in a splendid roomy aviary and carefully fed and nourished; but, although it was kept here, living in the lap of royal luxury for four years, the French pigeon did not forget its fatherland.

At the end of that time the aviary was left open one day. The pigeon flew out, mounted high in the air, flew about for a moment, as if to find the points of the compass and started in a straight line for Paris. Ten days afterward it beat its wings against the entrance to its old loft in the Boulevard de Clichy. There it was recognized and its case being brought to public attention it was honored as a patriot returned from foreign captivity. It remained at the Paris Jardin d'Acclimatation until it died in 1878.

In Belgium, where pigeon racing is as great sport as horse racing is in England and America, the birds have made a speed of seventy miles an hour for short distances. From thirty to forty miles an hour, is, however, the average speed of the average bird. Though not by nature strong of wing or equipped for long flight, the birds have been known to cover great distances. Probably the longest journey of which there is any record was made some ten years ago. A family of birds had been taken from Belgium to New York, where they were to be bred and trained. They were released from the cote before they had been thoroughly domesticated, and straightway disappeared. Two weeks later three of the pigeons, bedraggled, weary and nearly dead, arrived at their native cote in Belgium. How they had made the long ocean voyage nobody ever knew, but they had evidently accomplished it in some manner, and, out of respect for their wonderful achievement, they were allowed to remain in the home to regain which they had suffered so much.

The San Francisco Examiner records that "Sadie Jones, C. 21,392," is the champion long-distance homing pigeon of America, and the world, so far as is known. She flew from Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Philadelphia, a distance of 1,202 12-100 miles in 16 days and 3 hours. Sadie Jones is the property of M. S. Sullivan, of West Philadelphia, and was five years of age at the time of making the record. She was named after the daughter of the National Race Secretary, Charles H. Jones, and was personally countermarked and shipped by that young lady, together with five others. She was the only one to return. So far as known no other pigeon has ever flown this distance.

When the writer was many years younger, to please the rising generation he made a dove cote and procured a few tame pigeons. In the course of time the birds had increased by not only rearing young, but by inducing strange birds to accept the quarters offered. The pigeons were regularly fed, the meal hour being announced by a peculiar whistle. The dinner call was soon known to all the birds in the place, and the yard would immediately fill with birds from every direction when the whistle was blown. On one occasion a lame bird in the flock, which had evidently been caught in a snare and escaped with a slip noose on one leg that had cut into the flesh, making the poor bird very lame, came with the rest.

After considerable pains the bird was caught, the string cut, and the bird placed on the ground. It stood a moment as if amazed, and then flew up to its liberator's knee and fed out of his hand.

ETHEL MORTON.

Looking from my study window, one day, last June, I noticed a little yellow and brown bird, who was hopping from bush to bush. She was busily chattering to another bird, who sat on a neighboring tree, evidently much enjoying a worm he was eating. I knew the pair, directly, as my friends of the season before,—the Yellow Warblers.

Mrs. Warbler was looking for a good place to build her nest. After some consideration, she decided on a bush in front of my window. Off she flew to a field of dandelions, and soon returned with several pieces of dandelion fluff. It took quite a while to complete the house, for Mrs. W. was very neat and precise in her work, but after it was finished, Mr. Warbler came over to look at it (he had left the building to his wife!), and as he seemed perfectly satisfied with it, Mrs. Warbler was happy.

Not many days after this, some pretty little blue eggs lay snugly in the nest, and Mrs. Warbler was a mother! Alas! On the day the young Warblers left their shells, their mother came home from a call on Mrs. Robin, to find her children crying most bitterly. An ugly Cowbird had dropped its great, brown, spotted egg right in their beautiful parlor! (It seems to be a custom with these birds, to leave their eggs in the nests of their unfortunate neighbors, rather than hatch them themselves.)

Poor, little Mrs. Warbler! She tried with all her strength to push the egg out of her home, but without success. So, what do you suppose she did? Why, she just built another nest on top of the old one! It was a great deal of trouble, and the young Warblers tried her patience sorely, by persisting in pulling at the threads and straws, as she wove the frame-work of her new dwelling. "Labor is its own reward," however, for there was not a happier couple in all bird land than Mr. and Mrs. Yellow Warbler, when they brought their admiring friends and relations, to see the young Warblers, in the two-storied nest.