We passed through the side door of a big stable on West Nineteenth
Street. The mild smell of the well-kept stalls was lost in the sweet
odor of hay, as we mounted a ladder and entered the long garret. The
south end was walled off, and the familiar "Coo-oo, cooooo-oo,
ruk-at-a-coo," varied with the "whirr, whirr, whirr" of wings, informed
us that we were at the pigeon-loft.
This was the home of a famous lot of birds, and to-day there was to be
a race among fifty of the youngsters. The owner of the loft had asked
me, as an unprejudiced outsider, to be judge in the contest.
It was a training race of the young birds. They had been taken out for
short distances with their parents once or twice, then set free to
return to the loft. Now for the first time they were to be flown
without the old ones. The point of start, Elizabeth, N. J., was a long
journey for their first unaided attempt. "But then," the trainer
remarked, "that's how we weed out the fools; only the best birds make
it, and that's all we want back."
There was another side to the flight. It was to be a race among those
that did return. Each of the men about the loft as well as several
neighboring fanciers were interested in one or other of the Homers.
They made up a purse for the winner, and on me was to devolve the
important duty of deciding which should take the stakes. Not the first
bird back, but the first bird into the loft, was to win, for one that
returns to his neighborhood merely, without immediately reporting at
home, is of little use as a letter-carrier.
The Homing Pigeon used to be called the Carrier because it carried
messages, but here I found that name restricted to the show bird, the
creature with absurdly developed wattles; the one that carries the
messages is now called the Homer, or Homing Pigeon--the bird that
always comes home. These Pigeons are not of any special color, nor have
they any of the fancy adornments of the kind that figure in Bird shows.
They are not bred for style, but for speed and for their mental gifts.
They must be true to their home, able to return to it without fail. The
sense of direction is now believed to be located in the bony labyrinth
of the ear. There is no creature with finer sense of locality and
direction than a good Homer, and the only visible proofs of it are the
great bulge on each side of the head over the ears, and the superb
wings that complete his equipment to obey the noble impulse of
home-love. Now the mental and physical equipments of the last lot of
young birds were to be put to test.
Although there were plenty of witnesses, I thought it best to close all
but one of the pigeon-doors and stand ready to shut that behind the
first arrival.
I shall never forget the sensations of that day. I had been warned:
"They start at 12; they should be here at 12:30; but look out, they
come like a whirlwind. You hardly see them till they're in."
We were ranged along the inside of the loft, each with an eye to a
crack or a partly closed pigeon-door, anxiously scanning the
southwestern horizon, when one shouted: "Look out--here they come!"
Like a white cloud they burst into view, low skimming over the city
roofs, around a great chimney pile, and in two seconds after first
being seen they were back. The flash of white, the rush of pinions,
were all so sudden, so short, that, though preparing, I was unprepared.
I was at the only open door. A whistling arrow of blue shot in, lashed
my face with its pinions, and passed. I had hardly time to drop the
little door, as a yell burst from the men, "Arnaux! Arnaux! I told you
he would. Oh, he's a darling; only three months old and a winner--he's
a little darling!" and Arnaux's owner danced, more for joy in his bird
than in the purse he had won.
The men sat or kneeled and watched him in positive reverence as he
gulped a quantity of water, then turned to the food-trough.
"Look at that eye, those wings, and did you ever see such a breast? Oh,
but he's the real grit!" so his owner prattled to the silent ones whose
birds had been defeated.
That was the first of Arnaux's exploits. Best of fifty birds from a
good loft, his future was bright with promise.
He was invested with the silver anklet of the Sacred Order of the High
Homer. It bore his number, 2590 C, a number which to-day means much to
all men in the world of the Homing Pigeon.
In that trial flight from Elizabeth only forty birds had returned. It
is usually so. Some were weak and got left behind, some were foolish
and strayed. By this simple process of flight selection the
pigeon-owners keep improving their stock. Of the ten, five were seen no
more, but five returned later that day, not all at once, but straggling
in; the last of the loiterers was a big, lubberly Blue Pigeon. The man
in the loft at the time called: "Here comes that old sap-headed Blue
that Jakey was betting on. I didn't suppose he would come back, and I
didn't care, neither, for it's my belief he has a streak of Pouter."
The Big Blue, also called "Corner-box" from the nest where he was
hatched, had shown remarkable vigor from the first. Though all were
about the same age, he had grown faster, was bigger, and incidentally
handsomer, though the fanciers cared little for that. He seemed fully
aware of his importance, and early showed a disposition to bully his
smaller cousins. His owner prophesied great things of him, but Billy,
the stable-man, had grave doubts over the length of his neck, the
bigness of his crop, his carriage, and his over-size. "A bird can't
make time pushing a bag of wind ahead of him. Them long legs is dead
weight, an' a neck like that ain't got no gimp in it," Billy would
grunt disparagingly as he cleaned out the loft of a morning.