When was pigeon mail used

In fact, they are two different breeds of pigeons. Both the homing pigeon and the carrier pigeon are the result of many years of selective breeding, starting long ago with the rock pigeon, a wild pigeon with a talent for returning unerringly to its home. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.

Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Sociology When was pigeon post invented? Ben Davis April 22, When was pigeon post invented? According to some reports, a homing pigeon flew back to its home after flying over miles at the peak speed of 60 miles per hour.

Exactly how such birds navigate themselves is still not clear. Scientists hypothesise that the pigeon uses a variety of sources like the direction of the Sun, Earth's magnetism, and odours associated with different places for finding its direction.

Before the advent of telegraph, telephone and radio, using pigeons for sending messages was quite popular among the military, newspapers, and stock brokers. The valiant G. Joe flew 20 miles in 20 minutes. He arrived in the nick of time, just before bombers lifted off, saving the town and British troops.

The British awarded G. Joe the Dickin Medal for Gallantry. The U. Army maintained their "Pigeon Corps" until And in the 21st century in France, pigeons have been used to carry blood samples to testing facilities from remote locations.

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Wild Animals. Perching Birds. Carrier pigeons helped save hundreds of lives carrying important messages. The Greeks and Romans both used pigeon post to convey information, and many pigeons worked in military service, carrying messages with troop orders and other military material from place to place.

In addition to pigeons, birds of prey were sometimes used for messages. At various periods in history, the popularity of pigeon post waxed and waned.

Successful communication during sieges and prolonged military campaigns sometimes led to a resurgence of interest, for example, with many governments maintaining fleets of messenger birds to carry critical information for the state through the s. Some post offices also retained a pigeon mail service at one time, and it was used to communicate between financial institutions with information about stock prices and other news of interest.