ADVENTURES OF A CARRIER PIGEON.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2739, 1 February 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

ADVENTURES OF A CARRIER PIGEON.

The pathetic adventures of a carrier pigeon, lately employed t>v the Empress of Austria to bear a letter to her daughter, the Arohduchess Marie Valerei, may be noted by writers of fiction in quest of new incidents. The bird was one of those which are trained for service at the arsenal of Pola, and' when the Empress recently sailed from Pola to Corfu she took this pigeon on board her yacht, having arranged to let it fly with a letter to her daughter at a certain distance from the coast. It was supposed that the pigeon would return to Pola, and orders were given to forward the contents of the letter which it carried immediately by telegraph to the young archduchess. Unfortunately, a peasant with a gun saw the bird and shot it. Ho did not notice the letter, which was, no doubt, blown off by the shot, and so, while he bore home the Empress's winged messenger for supper, tho letter remained on the ground. It was accidentally found a few days afterwards; and now some loyal newspapers are proposing that to prevent a .recurrence of such mishaps pigeons should no more be shot at all.

It is a wonder that nobody has suggested that carrier pigeons on State service should be put into a showy uniform, like those in which the Austrian civil servants aro shortly going to aatonioh their fclhvrsubjects.