The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1900-03-15
ENGLAND'S WAR BIRDS.
Thousands of Carrier Pigeons Are in
Service in south
Africa

Africa
The pigeon post established at Lady
smith and Durham for carrying war
messages has been such a success that
special appropriations for increasing
the service will be recommended by
the war Office. A good deal of this sue
cess of the pigeon service is due to
the skill and energy of Col. Hassard, of
the Royal engineers, who has spent
years in pigeon culture for just this
sort of an emergency, and he has demon
strated the fitness of the birds for war
purposes. Col. Hassard, who was sta
toned at the Cape before hostilities
broke out, Systematically trained his
pigeons for carrying messages across
the rough, mountainous land, and his
various pigeon posts were of the great
est value in keeping the home office APP
prised of the exact condition of the
army.
Nearly every civilized government
now has carrier pigeons connected with
both their war and navy departments.
France has entered into pigeon culture
more extensively than any other Eu-
ropean power, and it is roughly esti-
mated that there are $4,000 pigeons
in that country trained for war emer-
gencies. The main pigeon loft or train
ing station is at Chalons, where several
thousand birds are kept all the time.
Every frontier post and fortress has
smaller lofts, and three times week
regular communication is kept up be-
tween these places by means of
pigeons. This pigeon post in constant
practice in times of peace would be of
immediate service in times of war. The
state protects the carriers, and anyone
caught shooting a pigeon of any kind
in France is heavily fined. The pigeon.
service has been established in France
since 1870.
The German war department owns
about 10000 pigeons, but they have a
system of reserves which they can call
into service in times of war. The own
ers of private lofts have to register
their carrier pigeons, and the war de-
partment knows exactly how many of
the birds it can obtain at moments
notice.
The Austrian government also relies
largely upon private owners pigeons
for service in times of war. Every bird
in the country has to be registered,
and not one can be sold or sent out of
the country without permission. Since
1875 few thousand pigeons have been
in regular service at the fortresses and
frontier posts. Russia has military
pigeon system, which is maintained by
the officers in the corps of engineers.
Little is known about her system, ex-
cept that lofts are scattered through
out the empire, including bleak Siberia.
The intense cold of the winter months
in the latter place seriously interferes
with the success of the pigeon post
and partly neutralizes the good effect
of it. Italy's pigeon post was estab.
lished in 1872, and Spain and Portugal
inaugurated similar systems few years
later.
There are 1000 homing pigeons on
the books of the British navy, and sew
eral times this number on the books
of the army. In the past ten years the
United States army and navy depart
ments have been interested in the car
rier pigeons, and we have posts estab-
lished at different points throughout
the country. Their services have been
useful chiefly in the navy, and expert
ments are being made constantly in
communicating by this means between
the shore and the ships. There is no
system of registering homing pigeons
in private lofts, and in emergency the
government in need of more pigeons
would have to depend upon the patriot
ism of the private owners for increasing
its supply. That there would be plenty
of volunteers no one doubts for mo-
ment.-Collier's Weekly.