=The Carrier Pigeon.= The homing instinct--that is, the faculty of finding the way home after wandering or being taken away from it--is found in animals of all kinds. In some kinds of animals it is much more highly developed than in others, and some animals of each kind have more of it than is usual with their species. It is well known that migratory birds usually return to the same localities season after season, and that certain pairs often return to the same vicinity year after year and build their nests in the same places. When this instinct is highly developed in a wild bird, its habit of returning to the same nest is of great interest to those who observe it, but it has no particular value. In a domestic bird the homing instinct or habit is of service because the owner of a bird relies upon it to make the bird return always to the place which he has provided for it, instead of taking shelter elsewhere or remaining where nocturnal enemies will find it an easy prey. In the domestic land birds the instinct has no further use than this, but in pigeons which, while thoroughly domesticated, retain full power of flight, the development of the homing faculty makes it possible to use them as a means of communication when it is necessary to transmit short letters with great dispatch. [Illustration: Fig. 192. Muffed Tumblers with "saddle" color pattern. (Photograph from E. R. B. Chapman, Stoneham, Massachusetts)] It is known that pigeons were used as messengers in war about the beginning of the Christian Era. An Egyptian bas-relief of about 1350 B.C. shows pigeons being released from cages just as they are now released in flying matches. The homing instinct is so strong in the common pigeon that any one familiar with its habits may easily suppose that pigeons were used to carry messages almost as soon as men had devised means of communication by writing upon any material which the birds could carry in their flight. There is reason to believe that in very ancient times pigeons were bred and trained especially for work of this kind in Egypt, Greece, and Rome. [Illustration: Fig. 193. Feeding pigeons on Boston Common. (Photograph from Elmer E. Rice, Boston, Massachusetts)]