In India we have a queer custom that I do not like. If you sell a carrier no matter at what fabulous price, and it flies away from its new owner and comes back to you, it becomes your property again and no matter what the value, you never refund the price. Knowing that to be the accepted custom among pigeon fanciers, I had to train my newly acquired pets before anything else to love me. Since I had paid for them, I did not wish them to return to their former owners. I did my very best to make them cherish their new home loyally. But life is practical. I had to begin with the most necessary steps. The first few weeks I had to tie up their wings in order to keep them completely within the bounds of our roof. The art of tying a pigeon's feathers so that he is prevented from flying is delicate. You take a thread, and pass one end of it over one feather and under the next, very near its root, all the way until the entire wing is encompassed. Then you pass the other end of the thread by the same process under the first, over the second, and so on to the end of the wing, where the two ends of the thread are tied. It is very much like darning. It is an utterly painless form of captivity, for though it prevents a pigeon from flying, yet he is not kept from opening or flapping his wings. He can stretch them and can massage them with his beak. After this I used to put my new pigeons at different corners of the roof so that they might sit still, and with their eyes take in the colour and quality of their new surroundings. At least fifteen days should be allowed for this process. Here I must record a cunning thing that Gay-Neck did when his wings were tied in the above manner. I sold him early in November just to see if he would return to me when his wings were freed from their chain of threads. Well, two days after purchasing Gay-Neck, his new owner came to me and said: "Gay-Neck has run away." "How?" I asked. "I don't know, but I cannot find him in my house." "Did you tie his wings? Could he fly?" I asked. "His wings were tied." He answered. That struck terror to my soul. I said: "Oh, you brother of a camel and cousin of an ass, instead of running hither, you should have sought for him in your own neighbourhood. Do you not see that he tried to fly, but since his wings were tied, he fell off your roof? And by now he has been killed and devoured by some cat. Oh, this is a slaughter of a pigeon. You have robbed mankind of its diadem of carriers! You have murdered the glory of pigeonhood!" Thus I reproached him.