The history of the carrier pigeon goes far back in time. In the days of ancient Greece winners in the public games sent word of their victory to their friends by pigeon post. A real pigeon postal-system was founded in the Arabian empire by the Sultan Noureddin, who died in 1174, and this was kept up until 1258, when Bagdad, the capital, was taken and destroyed by the Mongols.
In later years, during the wars of Napoleon, large gains are said to have been made by the Rothschilds, the famous bankers, who received news of great events by pigeon post and used those news for stock buying and selling. The newspaper press has also made much use of messenger pigeons. The greatest case of this was in 1870, when the city of Paris was besieged by the German army and all the telegraph wires were down. News was sent out from Paris, in microscopical writing so fine that a single bird could carry thousands of messages at once. Military pigeons are still trained for use in case any war should arise. In the German city of Cologne there is a station with five or six hundred pigeons, trained to fly to the fortified places of the empire.
After our talk about the pigeon, with its swift powers of flight, we now come to a bird which has no power of flight at all, yet which is of much value to us from the splendid feathers of its wings. It would take strong wings indeed to lift from the ground the ostrich, the largest of all birds, standing six to eight feet high. But what it lacks in wings it makes up in legs, for it is a wonderful runner, being able to outrun the fastest horse. As it runs it spreads its wings, which seem to act as sails.
The ostrich has often been tamed and thus it may be classed with birds of the home, though much too large for the poultry yard. It grows quite friendly to those who have it in charge, but does not like strangers and is apt to attack them in a violent manner. As these birds are plentiful in the great Sahara desert, they were often kept by the Romans and used in their public shows. They were also used as food, and a glutton among the Roman emperors is said to have had the brains of a large number of ostriches served up to him in a single dish.
The people of Africa are very fond of ostrich eggs and travellers in that land also speak well of them. Each egg weighs about three pounds, so that one of them is equal to about two dozen hen's eggs. The egg is cooked by being set on end in a fire and its contents stirred about with a stick thrust into a hole in the upper end. The shell is so thick and strong that it is used in Africa as a water vessel.