The pigeon expedition which I saw dispatched from Antwerp, consisted of about thirty birds. The point of departure was a somewhat elevated site in the outskirts of the city. A spot like this is always made choice of, lest the pigeons, on first taking flight, should lose themselves amidst the house-tops and church spires of the city with which they are unacquainted; and by having the open country before them, they are enabled to trace out their own land-marks. When the pigeons are to be sent off on lengthened journeys, it is usual to convey them to the point of departure at a very early hour in the morning:—by this means they are dispatched in quietude, unmolested by an assemblage of curious gazers, and they have the light of a whole day before them for their journey. Carrier pigeons do not pursue their flight after night-fall, being then precluded by the darkness from seeing the surrounding country with sufficient distinctness to enable them to discern their resting-places, or stations. In the obscurity of night the whole flock might light on strange dove-cotes, and be captured; an accident which would occasion the total failure of a postal expedition, for the few pigeons who might escape capture, would, on the return of morning, be bewildered, and unable to recombine their plan of route. Pigeons are not suited for postal communication between places so remote one from another that the journey cannot be completed in a single day. If it can be accomplished in one flight, so much the better. Antwerp and Paris are, I believe, the extreme points of distance within which carrier pigeons are capable of journeying with certainty. Herr Kohl gives no account of these stations or stages. We once saw one at Montrieul, the first station beyond Dover, towards Paris. The town stands on a high eminence, and is well adapted for the purpose. The cote was on the roof of a _café_. It was a square apartment with a flat ceiling, in which was cut a small door or trap: on the inside of this was fixed a small bell. If a Dover pigeon had alighted on the trap, the bell would have rung, and called the attention of an attendant always in waiting. The pigeon would have been secured, the dispatch taken from under its wing, and the messenger put into its cage. In a twinkling the cyphered paper would be fastened under the wing of the Beauvais or Amiens pigeon, and it would be sent off. On arriving at its destination, the same formula would be gone through, and the Paris pigeon would take the dispatch to its destination. Although several pigeons, even in fine weather, are entrusted with the same message, two seldom arrive at the common destination at the same time, so that at each place the operation we have described is frequently repeated, in order that at least one of many dispatches may be certain of arriving at the destination.