The Book of the Racing Pigeon - Fact and Theory from Many Source Including the Author's Own Experience

By Carl Naether

This early work on Pigeon Racing is an engrossing read for any pigeon racer of historian of the sport, but also contains a wealth of information and anecdote that is still pertinent and practical today. Recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of the pigeon fancier. Contents Include: The Homing Pigeon in the Long Ago - The Homer Becomes Standard Equipment for Post and War - Peacetime Pigeon Service in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Pigeons of World War I - Pigeons of World War II - The Racing Pigeon: Mixture of Many Feathers; The "Looks" of the Racing Pigeon; Pigeon Behaviour; Plumage and the Mold; General Care of Racing Homers; The Racing Loft; Breeding Methods; Training Young Birds; Racing Young Birds; Training Old Birds; Unusual Methods of Flying: Night and Two-way; The Homing Urge; Representative Racing-Pigeon Magazines: American and European; Important Books on Racing Pigeons; Racing-Pigeon Literature; and an Index. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781447498179

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Index

CHAPTER ONE

The Homing Pigeon in the Long Ago

MAN’S DESIRE TO DISPATCH THE NEWS OF MOMENTOUS PERsonal, business, and national events over considerable distances as rapidly as possible dates from ancient times. Primitive peoples used the penetrating sound of the drum to communicate with one another over great distances, and even today, this primeval mode of sending messages prevails among some African tribes. Animals having been proven superior to mechanical means as the swift carriers of messages of a confidential nature, man lost no time in utilizing them. Here we need recall only the use of dogs by Indian tribes, who, according to Dr. A. C. Eduard Baldamus, German authority on pigeons and poultry, writing in 1878, carefully picked queerlooking beasts for keenness of intelligence and swiftness of foot—trained to withstand hunger and thirst, even pain, for hours on end.

Swiftest of all living creatures in ancient days was, of course, the bird. Unfettered by obstacles that slow the pace of human or animal runner, the bird could wing its way aloft and on unimpeded airways reach the goal. Little wonder that the ancients admired, even worshiped, certain birds, and that they longed to use bird-flight for the dispatch and delivery of messages. According to Pliny, the Roman naturalist, swallows served to carry the news of victory direct from the arena or amphitheater to the homes of the contestants, where they had their nests. Presumably, the very return of these swift sailors of the air to their nest sites meant that certain contestants had been victorious.

In due course the ancients quite naturally turned to a bird whose aerial travels they could control in some measure at least,—a winged creature so passionately attached to its nesting place as always to be ready and eager to return to it without a moment’s delay whenever it was liberated in strange, distant places. The pigeon, more or less (probably less) domesticated, became man’s best message carrier. In the course of centuries, through selection (natural and artificial) it became the so-called carrier, post, or homing pigeon—our racing pigeon of today. The earliest record of pigeons in a domesticated state is said to have occurred about 3000 B.C., in the fifth Egyptian dynasty.

Comments on the role of flying messenger played by pigeons in early times are numerous, but widely scattered in books on pigeons and poultry, and in general literature. Since in America we have but few comprehensive books on pigeons, I have gleaned most of the historical data from early German, English, French, and Belgian books. The German and the English writers have treated the subject quite fully, even though they cite relatively few specific instances pointing to the systematic use of pigeons as aerial couriers.

According to Daniel Girton, English author writing in 1775, pigeons were very much used as dispatch carriers in the East, especially at Scanderoon. He tells us that the merchants of Aleppo in ancient Syria were notified of the arrival of ships very expeditiously by the use of carriers. Girton comments that:

Extraordinary attention was formerly paid to the training of these pigeons, in order to be sent from governors in a besieged city to generals that were coming to succour it; from princes to their subjects with the news of some important transaction; or from lovesick swains to their Dulcineas with expressions of their passion. In this country these aerial messengers have been made use of for a very singular purpose, being let loose at Tyburn at the moment the fatal cart is drawn away, to notify to distant friends, the shameful exit of the unhappy criminal. . . .

That the so-called pigeon-post played a significant role in ancient Egypt is apparent from a painting dated 3000 B.C. It portrays the coronation of the king, who is to rule over both Upper and Lower Egypt. At the moment of the coronation, four pigeons are released to apprise the gods in the north, the south, the east, and the west of his ascendancy to the throne. Some Egyptian monuments of the time of the Pharaohs depict seamen from Cypria and Camdia liberating pigeons from their vessels at sea to herald their approach to the townsfolk along the coast. Ancient menus inscribed on stone monuments prove that pigeons in the time of the Pharaohs were a regular item of food.

The Bible makes first mention of pigeons in Genesis VIII, 6-12, as follows:

And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. And he sent forth a raven, which went to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her feet, and she returned unto him into the ark; for the waters were upon the face of the whole earth. Then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came in to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf plucked off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

In all probability, the dove referred to was the Blue Rock pigeon, Columba livia, well endowed with homing sense. Arabian legend has it that the first time the bird returned with an olive branch, its appearance revealed in no wise the condition of the earth. However, when the bird returned to the ark the second time, the red soil clinging to its feet was dry—mute evidence that the flood waters had receded. In gratitude, so the legend maintains, Noah offered a prayer beseeching God to continue forever the red color of the pigeon’s feet.

There is frequent Biblical mention of doves and pigeons serving sacrificial purposes, as in Genesis XV, 9, where Abraham is commanded to Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. In the detailed enumeration of domesticated animals acceptable at the sacrificial altar, appearing in Leviticus I, 14, we read, in part, as follows: And if the burnt-sacrifice, for his offering to the Lord, be of fowls; then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons. . . . In Chapter V, 7, of the same book we read: And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the Lord. Some investigators aver that these references, and particularly the one found in Isaiah IX, 8—Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?—point unmistakably to the domestication of the Blue Rock pigeon in Biblical times. Accordingly, the phrase "their windows" (italics mine) refers to the latticed shutters or entrances with which the dovecotes in the East were customarily equipped. It appears then, that the windows of men’s houses there were in most cases similarly latticed or shuttered, not glassed in, their principal function being to permit the air to enter, but not the sunlight.

Anacreon, the Greek lyric poet, writing in the sixth century B.C., paid tribute to the homing pigeon in his Ode to the Carrier Pigeon,* which was translated by Sir Thomas More, in part as follows:

Tell me why, my sweetest dove,

Thus your humid pinions move

Shedding through the air in showers

Essence of the balmiest flowers?

Tell me whither, whence you rove,

Tell me all, my sweetest dove.

Pliny emphasized the extent to which the Romans were addicted to the pigeon hobby in these words: And many are mad with the love of these birds; they build towers for them on the tops of their roof, and will relate the high breeding and ancestry of each, after the ancient fashion. Another Roman scholar, Marcus Terentius Varro, writing about 120 B.C., comments on the then-prevailing practice of liberating pigeons direct from spectators’ seats in the crowded amphitheater to carry news of victory or defeat, or other intelligence, to a gladiator’s or spectator’s friends and families at home. Pigeons were used not only because of the distance involved and because of their speed, but because it was often impossible for a Roman spectator to leave the extremely crowded amphitheater and report the news in person.

In the pursuit of their crafty callings, ancient seers, claiming prophetic gifts, are said to have been greatly aided by homing pigeons. Thus, while some people maintained that Taurosthenes’ victory at Olympia was communicated in a single day to his father at Aegina by a vision, others claimed that Taurosthenes carried a pigeon away with him, making her leave young ones still tender and unfledged, and that having obtained the victory, he sent off the bird, after attaching a piece of something purple to her; and that she, hastening to her young, returned in one day from Pissa to Aegina.

According to Xenophon, Ctesias, Lucian, and others, pigeons were held sacred by the Syrians and Assyrians, who would not eat them—the latter because they believed that the soul of their once famous Queen Semiramis had taken its flight to heaven in the shape of a dove. The Russians, too, are said to have held pigeons in high esteem—a national custom based on some very ancient, but obscure, tradition.

Warfare afforded frequent and often continuous opportunity for the use of homing pigeons. Pliny says that During the siege of Mutina, Decius Brutus sent letters tied to carrier pigeons’ feet into the camp of the Consuls. What service did Anthony derive from his trenches, and his vigilant blockade, and even from his nets stretched across the river, while the winged messenger was traversing the air?

That dire consequences sometimes attended the failure of a homing pigeon is well chronicled in Fuller’s Historie of the Holy Warre:

The Christians began the siege of the citie of Jerusalem on the North (being scarce assaultable on any other side by reason of steep and broken rocks), and continued it with great valour. On the fourth day after, they had taken it, but for want of scalingladders. Nearer than seven miles off, there grew no stick of bignesse. I will not say, that since our Saviour was hanged on a tree, the land about that citie hath been cursed with a barrenness of wood. As for the Christians’ want of ladders, that was quickly supplied: for the Genoans arriving with a fleet in Palestine, brought most curious engineers, who framed a wooden towre, and all other artificial instruments. For we must not think, that the world was at a loose for warretools before the brood of guns was hatched. And now for a preparative, that their courage might work the better, they began with a fast, and a solemn procession about Mount Olivet.

Next day they gave a fierce assault; yea, women played the men, and fought most valiantly in armour. But they within being fourty thousand strong, well victualled and appointed, made stout resistance, till the night (accounted but a foe for her friendship) umpired betwixt them, and abruptly put an end to their fight in the midst of their courage.

When the first light brought news of a morning, they on afresh; the rather because they had intercepted a letter tied to the legs of a dove (it being the fashion of that country, both to write and send their letters with the wings of a fowl), wherein the Persian Emperour promised present succour to the besieged. The Turks cased the outside of their walls with bags of chaff, straw, and such-like pliable matter, which conquered the engines of the Christians by yeelding unto them. As for one sturdie engine whose force would not be tamed, they brought two old witches on the walls to inchant it: but the spirit thereof was too strong for their spells, so that both of them were miserably slain in the place.

According to Pliny, the danger of exposing the pigeon to the thievish Falcon that watches under his covert of leaves, and seizes the rejoicing bird in its very pride may be minimized by keeping the kestrel, called tinunculus, with the pigeons; for it defends them, and frightens Hawks by a natural power to such a degree that they avoid the sight and sound of it. On this account, Pigeons regard them with especial love. And they say, that if they be buried in four corners of the pigeonhouse in fresh-painted earthen vessels, the Pigeons will not shift their habitation—a result which some have endeavored to obtain by cutting the joints of their wings with a golden knife, wounds otherwise inflicted not being harmless—and the bird being besides much of a vagrant; for it is their artifice to wheedle and corrupt each other, and furtively to return home with a party of followers.

The first real pigeon-post was established between 1146 and 1174 A.D., by Sultan Nurreddin, the Caliph of Bagdad. By means of this service, which was administered by postmasters stationed throughout his domain, this enterprising ruler obtained messages from all parts of the realm, and even from Egypt and Syria. An even more comprehensive pigeon-post was operated toward the end of the twelfth century by the Caliph Achmed. In fact, the period from the end of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth centuries constituted the heyday in regular pigeon-post service in the Orient. During that time fantastic sums of money, sometimes up to one thousand dinars apiece, were paid for proved post-pigeons. The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrha—cities destroyed by fire—are also said to have enjoyed the benefits of a well-established pigeon-post which greatly facilitated the dispatch and the receipt of news.

In the Middle Ages some of the Oriental homing pigeons were brought to Europe by Dutch and British merchant seamen. In the siege of Haarlem (1572) and that of Leyden (1575), the offspring of these Oriental birds rendered noteworthy service as flying messengers, being the sole means of communication of the beleaguered garrison with the outside world.

* Quoted by permission from Oxford Standard Authors edition of Thomas More’s poems.

CHAPTER TWO

The Homer Becomes Standard Equipment for Post and War

THE PIGEON’S ABILITY TO HOME SWIFTLY, AND MORE OR LESS surely, has been a boon not only to those dispatching private and military messages, but also to men in business. Baron Nathan de Rothschild, the London financier, equipped with homing pigeons his reporters who followed in the wake of the armies of Napoleon. In this unique manner Rothschild managed to receive the news of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, three days ahead of the general public.

Employing this same intelligence forthwith at the London Stock Exchange, the British financier is said to have in this wise laid the foundation for the immense fortunes of the well-known House of Rothschild. The birds utilized in this manner did not come direct from the Continent, but were used in relays, lofts being stationed at Calais, Dover, Sittingbourne, Blackheath, and London. While the majority of the birds in these efficient lofts were small, blue Antwerps, there were also many crosses between Dragoons and Antwerps among them.

Other banking houses on the Continent, especially those in Paris, Rome, and Brussels, found advantage in the use of homing pigeons to carry news of the winning numbers in the state lotteries, which have always been popular on the Continent. Stock and bond fluctuations in the principal money markets of Europe were reported from city to city by means of pigeons, which were so commonly employed for this purpose that they were called exchange pigeons (Kurstauben).

Nor was it very long before the European newspapers furnished their reporters pigeons in order to expedite the sending of important news stories to the home offices. At the time Louis Philippe was dethroned and the Second Republic set up in France in 1848, certain Belgian newspapers so expeditiously operated pigeon-posts between Paris, Brussels, and Antwerp that they were able to report the momentous happenings in Paris as promptly as did the papers in the French capital. A German newspaper, Die Kölnische Zeitung, likewise maintained connections with the principal European news centers by means of pigeon-post. In 1849 the cities of Berlin and Aixla-Chapelle were already connected by telegraph, but not the latter city and Brussels. To bridge this gap in communication, the Reuter Telegraph Bureau inaugurated a pigeon-post. It so hastened the arrival of the dispatches as to beat the telegraphic service by eight hours. To insure a dependable service, Reuter’s would send the identical message by at least three pigeons. The highly efficient pigeon-post operated by this news agency between the cities just mentioned is said to have very appreciably enhanced the fame of Reuter’s.

Since homing pigeons played a heroic role during the Franco-Prussian War, particularly in the winter of 1870–1871 when Paris was besieged by the Germans, it may be well to relate here the most interesting aspects of their use in those trying times. According to Major H. T. W. Allatt, not a single pigeon had been sent out of the French capital when the Germans arrived under the walls of Paris. It seemed, therefore, impossible to receive any news from the outside. Before the siege, 800 birds, belonging to the societies in northern France, had been brought into Paris and were for a time the only means of communication with the outside world.

When the first balloon, the Neptune, left Paris on September 23, carrying both official and civilian dispatches, it was found that there was no way in which to ascertain whether or not it had landed safely and clear of the enemy. This uncertainty caused so much anxiety that M. Van Rosebeke, vice-president of the Société L’Espérance, proposed that the next balloon, the Ville de Florence, should take out pigeons which could be used to bring back messages. Accordingly, when this balloon left at 11 A.M., September 25, it carried three pigeons, and they returned at 5 P.M., with the message: WE LANDED SAFELY IN VERNOUILLET, NEAR TRIEL. WE WILL TAKE OFFICIAL DISPATCHES TO TOURS. BAGS OF LETTERS WILL BE DISTRIBUTED.

Over this momentous news, the Parisians, most of whom had not realized the capabilities of the pigeons, went wild with joy. Of the sixty-four balloons which followed, all but four carried pigeons.

All of the birds selected for the flight into Paris were transported early in the morning by train from Tours, whose prefecture had built an official loft, to the farthest northern point which could safely be reached, in order to reduce the length of the flight and loss of birds. Blois, about one hundred miles distant from the capital, was for some time used as a favorite liberation station.

Even though a total of 214 pigeons were dispatched into Paris between the middle of September and December 11, 1870, when the government was removed to Bordeaux, the majority of the birds were lost. Some copies of all dispatches, however, reached their destination, since the same dispatch was carried by five birds.

The weather proved to be the great obstacle to successful flights. Even though the liberators knew that it was useless to send the birds forth in fog and rain, the government officials paid no attention to their pleas. The following significant report appears in many dispatches announcing the liberation of the birds: Despite the unfavorable weather, we liberated the birds, in accordance with your orders. There is no chance of the birds reaching Paris.

During the severe winter of 1870–1871, the ground was often white with snow—an unfamiliar sight which apparently confused the birds that had to fly often in thick fog and intense cold on days that were all too short. Furthermore, hungry birds of prey as well as the human enemy took a large toll. Many pigeons were known to have been shot by French peasants, who were in the dark regarding the important missions the birds were flying. Forthwith a decree was issued making the shooting, killing, or taking of homing pigeons punishable by law and at the same time offering liberal rewards for the return of lost pigeons.

Not until November 4, by which time 115 pigeons had been used, was the pigeon-post made available to the public. By then every person residing in France was permitted to correspond with residents in Paris by means of the pigeon-post, which belonged to the Administration of Telegraphs and Posts. Fifty centimes per word was the official rate, later reduced to twenty centimes. All telegrams were to be in plain and intelligible French, without signs or conventional figures, and without allusions to the political or national situation. The arrival of the message in the French capital was not guaranteed.

The messages were first copied in handwriting in large letters; then pasted, one directly below the other, on large sheets of cardboard. Fastened to wooden panels, the cardboard sheets containing two or three columns of dispatches, were then photographed and reduced to 1 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches—a reduction of 1 to 300 in surface. Later on, Monsieur Dragon, a well-known Parisian microscopic photographer, arrived at Tours and soon effected an even greater reduction of the messages, photographing them on very thin film of collodion. Each film or pellicle contained an average of 2,500 dispatches. Since a pigeon could easily carry a dozen films, it could take 30,000 dispatches. One bird arriving in Paris from Tours on February 3, 1871, is said to have carried eighteen films which contained 40,000 messages.

At first, the handwritten paper messages were rolled tight, waxed over, and fastened to a tail feather. However, when it was discovered that the thread, which kept the message in place, cut or damaged the paper, the message was placed in a small goose quill, two inches long. The tube was then pierced close to its ends with a red-hot steel point so as not to split it, and in the holes so provided, silk threads were inserted to fasten it to the strongest feather of the tail.

All birds were stamped on the wing-feathers with three sets of numbers, the first reporting the number of birds sent; the second, the number of the series of messages; and the third, the number of pigeons remaining. Each racing-pigeon loft in Paris was guarded by a sentry. Once a pigeon arrived, its owner brought it under military escort to the Postmaster-General, Monsieur Chassinat, who unfastened the messages.

One bird, belonging to Fancier Dérouard, is said to have succeeded in flying messages into Paris on six different occasions. The principal reason for the success of the pigeons as a whole is ascribed to the fact that they were flying their old racecourse—Paris-Orléans-Blois-Tours-Poitiers—the greater portion of which they knew in all probability from their peacetime training and racing.

This spectacular performance of the French homers in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 was in large measure responsible for the increasing popularity which the pigeon sport enjoyed afterward in almost every other European country. It was but a few years later that laws regulating the establishment and the maintenance of racing-pigeon lofts in peace and in war were enacted in most European countries, and government pigeon stations were soon placed in operation at strategic locations.

By 1891 approximately 250,000 pigeons were available for official government use. The shooting of pigeons was prohibited, and a strict count of the number of birds kept in the country was maintained from year to year. While Chalons had the principal pigeon-training station, depots were scattered in most of the French towns and forts along the border. Three times a week various teams of birds were taken by train to frontier lofts, where they were liberated, a careful record being kept of their speed. Even if all of the country’s railways and telegraphs should be destroyed, the pigeon-post, so the French authorities maintained, would keep the government well informed of events occurring at the frontier. To some extent the government controlled the training, registration, and sale of civilians’ birds, and could, in the case of a national emergency, requisition all those that were trained.

The first Austrian military pigeon station was opened in 1875, the government at that time relying largely on private societies and on individuals to supply pigeons in time of emergency. To encourage the keeping of homers, it offered, for a time, to supply free of charge all materials for loft construction—on the condition that the owners’ birds could be requisitioned whenever a national need arose.

Italy established an extensive military pigeon system in 1872. It consisted of fourteen strategically located lofts. Spain had eighteen military lofts; Portugal, fourteen. Pigeons liberated in Lisbon have arrived in Southampton with messages, and vice versa; in the former case the distance flown was 900 miles.

In Germany, the war department was given a large appropriation each year for the systematic training of homing pigeons. It maintained seventeen lofts, mostly along the French border, stocked with over 10,000 birds, not counting all those trained by civilian fliers and registered for government service. Exact figures on the number of registered homing pigeons in Germany between 1870 and 1900 were never given out. No private breeder in that country could sell any bird or take it out of the country without government permission, and all his birds had to be registered with the government.

The British used military pigeons during the Boer War in 1900 with good results. When Ladysmith, a city in Natal, South Africa, was invested by the Boers, General Buller received many important dispatches by pigeon from Sir George White. The training of pigeons in the Cape Colony had been carried on systematically for some years. The British Navy recognized the communication of intelligence by pigeons officially as a part of the important system of signaling. In 1896 the British Admiralty established the first naval loft at Portsmouth, followed soon by those at Sheerness and Dartmouth. Over one thousand birds were on the roll of the Royal Navy at that time. On various occasions, Queen Victoria sent messages by homers from her yacht to Portsmouth.

The formation of the British National Union of Homing Fanciers was first strongly advocated in February 1894. Two years later it became a reality. Accordingly, the country was divided into six pigeon districts, each one handling, in large measure, its own affairs. By 1897 there were 2,518 fanciers who belonged to 128 different societies that were affiliated with this national body. Evidence of the enormous interest in homing pigeons extant in England during the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign is shown by the fact that by 1901 membership in the various societies had jumped to 13,376.

Belgium, the universally acknowledged cradle of the modern racing homer, boasted in 1899 an estimated total of 50,000 fanciers in Brussels and of some 60,000 in Antwerp. In no other country has the enthusiasm over the homer sport been so keen. It has been the people’s—everybody’s—sport. Practically all of our modern strains of racing homers were developed in the little country of Belgium—to a high degree of flying efficiency, especially in the long-distance races. That is the reason why the term Belgian racing homer has for many, many years stood for an intelligent, fast, and dependable flier of a very special kind.

That thousands of homing pigeons graced the lofts of fanciers in the United States in the 1890s, particularly in the eastern and midwestern states, is well indicated by the numerous races flown at that time. All were reported in Pigeon Flying (Philadelphia) and in American Homing Review (Brooklyn, New York), Howard Carter, the publisher of the latter journal, serving at the same time as Superintendent of the United States Naval Homing Pigeon Service at New York.

In 1899, Lieutenant E. W. Eberle of the United States Naval Institute wrote that "The rapid concentration of naval forces at the point of attack or the movement of forces to intercept the enemy is made possible only when we have a system by which we can communicate rapidly with the shore station from long distances at sea, and the messenger pigeon service is the only system by which we can obtain such communication. This service might be called, very appropriately, a ‘sea telegraph’ system; and although its messages cannot be dispatched with the speed and absolute certainty of the telegraph, yet the system has the advantage of forwarding its messages from any position within definite limits, and therefore it is not necessary to seek the telegraph station in order to send a message. . . .

"It requires but one practical illustration to strike home and to open our eyes to the merits of this service. Let a single human life be saved from shipwreck in a time of peace, or let one maneuver of the enemy’s fleet be frustrated in the midst of war by the timely arrival of one of these swift-winged, trusty little carriers with its urgent