But pigeons have an amazing sense of direction and love of their owners. I have yet to see creatures more loyal than pigeons and elephants. I have played with both, and the tusker on four feet in the country, or the bird on two wings in the city, no matter how far they wandered, were by their almost infallible instinct brought back to their friend and brother--Man. My elephant friend was called Kari, of whom you have heard before, and the other pet that I knew well was a pigeon. His name was Chitra-griva; Chitra meaning painted in gay colours, and Griva, neck--in one phrase, pigeon Gay-Neck. Sometimes he was called "Iridescence-throated." Of course Gay-Neck did not come out of his egg with an iridescent throat; he had to grow the feathers week by week; and until he was three months old, there was very little hope that he would acquire the brilliant collar, but at last when he did achieve it, he was the most beautiful pigeon in my town in India, and the boys of my town owned forty thousand pigeons. But I must begin this story at the very beginning, I mean with Gay-Neck's parents. His father was a tumbler who married the most beautiful pigeon of his day; she came from a noble old stock of carriers. That is why Gay-Neck proved himself later such a worthy carrier pigeon in war as well as in peace. From his mother he inherited wisdom, from his father bravery and alertness. He was so quick-witted that sometimes he escaped the clutches of a hawk by tumbling at the last moment right over the enemy's head. But of that later, in its proper time and place.