Military Lofts

Donnie Zehr May 05, 25

Military Lofts The military lofts of Germany are the most complete in every particular ever known. No expense is spared in their maintenance, in the selection of stock, and in experiment and contrivance to render the service of greatest value in time of need. The plant consists of flights at each military center, and the training is in using the birds for every conceivable emergency. The Government further essays to engage outside cooperation by the encouragement of pigeon-flying as a national sport. The method of sending the message said to be best approved by Herr Lenzen, the director, is to place it, reduced by microphotography, in the quill of a loose tail-feather of the color of the bird that is to carry it. This, fastened among the tail-feathers, is practically invisible to the unassisted or inexperienced eye. The pigeon-lofts of France are rapidly approaching German proportions, and expedient follows experiment in forestalling situations which might arise for the actual use of the birds. One curious experiment to insure communication between two invested cities or fortresses is worthy of the age. Young birds are taken from the nursery to the loft of one station and detained until they know the place as home. They are then removed to another to remain until they also feel familiar with it. They are finally taught to look to the one for food and to the other for water, thus causing them to journey from one to the other to satisfy the demands for existence, and giving them a double course over which they can be depended on to travel at such times as food is furnished at one loft and water at the other.
In England the homing pigeon is used to good purpose as message-bearer, but it is in individual service. Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier, General F. C. Hazzard, and Captain H. T. A. Allatt have been persistent in their efforts to induce the government to adopt it as an adjunct to the national defense; but, while in all probability the bird will in time be added to the colonial service, it is doubtful if it has extended use at home. "God help old England in the day she must depend upon the pigeon as a messenger of war," is the comment of Mr. John W. Logan, of Market Harbororo England's best fancier. "My experience," he adds, "has taught me that the pigeon cannot be depended upon as a means of communication in our foggy climate. On a foggy day the very best birds are useless." Still, the pigeon has done good service in the past. Its employment today is mainly to bring reports from off the water and from isolated or outlying districts and for sporting news. The saddest message that was probably ever carried was to an English father waiting at home to time the birds his little son, a lad of twelve, had taken away by train to liberate. The birds were late, but when they came they all bore messages saying the little owner had been killed by an accident to the train, and as there were no identifying marks they had hoped to communicate with the relatives in this way. None knew the boy, except that he was a passenger on each half-holiday to fly his pigeons.
In 1882 Major-General Hazen, of the Signal Service, and Major J. C. Breckinridge, of the Department of the Pacific, gave the subject of the use of pigeons in our own country serious consideration, the one for conveying warnings from the signal stations to isolated or distant centers; the other for communicating between stations in the West, and in Indian warfare. The result was a Memoir on the Use of the Homing Pigeon, published by the authority of the Secretary of War, and issued at about the same time from Washington and the Presidio, San Francisco.
The comment of Lieutenant Birkhimer, author of the signal service edition, upon the information furnished him by pigeon fanciers was, " It is extremely doubtful if the use of the birds of even the best breeds would compensate for the trouble of caring for and training them." This was indeed hard lines for those who held to the belief that their birds were capable of anything, and that the world knew them to be so; and one of the faithful, Mr. E. H. Conover, of Keyport, N. J., at once engaged to show that his young birds, at least, had "endurance for more than 150 miles before October of the year in which they were hatched," and needed no such coddling as the paltry five-mile jumps with a rest between; and, for full assurance, took the course from the south-west, and asked the favor of the start from Washington of the Chief Signal Officer.Pigeons while certainly flock animals really do enjoy space of thier own.  

All of the birds engaged but one were less than five months old at the time of the first journey, and although they had been flown around home, none had been over sixty miles away when the trial began. This was August 15th, and from Elkton, Md., one hundred miles. From this every bird returned, and in good time. The next journey was on the 19th, from Havre de Grace, seventeen miles beyond. Liberated at 7:06 A.M. by Mr. R. Seneca, all returned at about the same time, the first entering the loft at 10: 2 1 1/2 A. M. The next Friday the birds were sent to Washington, thus giving them over sixty miles of unknown country to cover before arriving at their last station. The start was at 5:28 A M., and the first return, four birds together, at 10:49 A.M. Seven of the nine had entered the loft six minutes later. The returns were reported by message-bird to New York, where the report was made up, and the best speed reported to Washington by wire by noon; and to Keyport twenty miles distant, by bird arriving before 12:45 P.M. Again all returned. The next journey was from Lynchburg, Va., three hundred and thirty- eight miles from Keyport and with a hundred and fifty-five miles of strange country. The start was at 6:10 A. M. September 1st by Sergeant John Healy. The first return was the Conover "Baby Mine " at 6:01 P.M., the first to return in any young bird season from over two hundred and fifty miles within the limits of the day of the start. The second return was at about seven o'clock the next morning. None of the Keyport birds were lost in these journeys.

While pigeons are certainly flock animals, like use, they enjoy a space of their own at the home. This typical view on interior loft construction depicts that very well. Each bird has a space they can all their own while still being within the flock.