Volume 3

The Percy anecdotes / collected and edited by Reuben and Sholto Percy [pseud.].

Date:
pref. 1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Percy anecdotes / collected and edited by Reuben and Sholto Percy [pseud.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    124/658 (page 114)
    «4 abundance, and Willie with his usual frank- ness eat of it heartily, and was as tame as any barn-yard fowl about the house. In a year or two afterwards this grateful bird discontinued his visits for ever. Effect of Colours. Mr. Forbes, the author of the ‘Oriental Memoirs,’ when at Dazagan in Concan, kept a cameleon for several weeks. The animal was singularly affected by anything black. The skirting-board of the room was black, and the creature carefully avoided it; but if by chance he came near it, or if a black hat were placed in his way, he shrunk and became black as jet. It was evident by the care he took to avoid those objects which occasioned this change, that the effort was painful to him ; the colour seemed to operate like a poison. From some antipathy of the same sort, the buffalo and the bull are enraged by scarlet, which, according to the blind man’s notion, acts upon them like the sound of a trumpet; and the viper is most provoked to bite when the viper-catcher presents it with a red rag. There are other animals to whom certain colours have the effect of fascination. Daffodils, or any bright yellow flowers, will decoy perch into a draw-net. Persons who wear black hats in summer are ten times more annoyed by flies than those who wear white ones. Such facts are highly curious, and well deserving of investigation. We know as yet but little of the manner in which animals are affected by colours, and that little is only known popularly. When more observations of this kind have been made and classified, they may lead to some consequences of prac- tical utility. Carrier Pigeons. The first mention we find made of the em- ployment of pigeons as letter carriers is by Ovid, in his ‘ Metamorphoses,’ 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 fEgina. Pliny informs us that during the siege of Modena by Marc Antony, pigeons were em- ployed by Brutus to keep up a correspondence 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 ob- served a pigeon flying over them, and imme- diately conjectured that it was charged with letters to the garrison. On this, the whole army raising a loud shout, so confounded the poor aerial 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 sub- stituted 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 tiiejf succour and with this false intelligence i}ltv 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 pronustd with a powerful army, and was not a littlt mortified to find the city already in the hands of the Christians. Carrier pigeons were again employed, bu- with better success, at the siege of Leyden in 1675. The garrison were, by means of tie information thus conveyed to them, induce; to stand out, till the enemy, despairing reducing the place, withdrew. On the mm being raised, the Prince of Orange ordo^ that the pigeons who had rendered stici essential service should be maintained at the public expense, and that at their death ftn should be embalmed and preserved in ti town house, as a perpetual token of gratitME In the East the employment of pigeonsfe the conveyance of letters is still very con. mon; particularly in Syria, Arabia, at; Egypt. Every bashaw has generally i basket full of them sent him from the grand seraglio, where they are bred, and in cased any' insurrection, or other emergency, he b enabled, by letting loose two or more of the* extraordinary messengers, to convey intelli- gence to the government long before it could be possibly obtained by other means. In Flanders great encouragement is air still given to the training of pigeons; ands Antwerp there is an annual competition of tfe society of pigeon fanciers. In the United States they have beeh-afe: recently employed, with very' nefarious Suc- cess, by a set of lottery gamblers. The lum- bers of the tickets drawn at Philadelphia win known by this mode of conveyance within* inconceivably short a period at New York,® if drawn at New York, known at Philadelphia and so with other towns, that the greats frauds were committed on the public if those in possession of this secret means* intelligence. In England the use of carrier pigeons is# it present wholly confined to the gent/ernes r & the fancy, who inherited it from the heroes* * Tyburn, with whom it was of old a favour* :* practice to let loose a number of pigeons# k the moment the fatal cart was drawn au'jT.Jc* to notify to distant friends the departure <* tj the unhappy criminal. The diligence and speed with which thestf feathered messengers wing their course is «j traordinary'. From the instant of their Ubei*J tion their flight is directed through the clou®] at an immense height to the place of theiTj destination. They are believed to dart wards in a straight line, and never desceSj except when at a loss for breath, and then Ml to be seen, commonly at dawn of day, 1: on their backs on the ground, with their open, sucking in with hasty avidity the of the morning. Of their speed, the ins related are almost incredible. The Consul of Alexandria daily S