Pigeon mail is considered by many to be an outdated fashion. In vain. The unique instinct of pigeons, in science called "homing", made these birds indispensable for humans in ancient times, and light memory cards turned them into the most effective postmen.

Domestic pigeons descended from the wild rock (rock) pigeon that still lives in southern Europe, North Africa and South Asia, nests on rocks and high steep banks. One of the earliest messages about pigeon mail can be found in the Old Testament. Noah releases a dove from the ark and awaits its return. And the dove does indeed return with an olive branch in its beak - a sign that the earth has become habitable again.

Pigeon mail was known in Ancient China, Greece, Egypt. The Roman historian and naturalist Pliny the Elder described how the commandant of the besieged Mutina Decius Brutus in 43 BC managed to notify the consul Girtius of the attack on the city, and he arrived in time with troops to rescue. During the Gallic War, Caesar exchanged messages with his supporters in Rome using carrier pigeons.

Price information

As we can see, a special impetus to the development of pigeon mail was given by military operations, which, without stopping, have been going on on earth since ancient times. War is a time when the fate of cities, armies, and even entire nations depends on accurate and timely information. The Egyptian Sultan Nur ad-Din paid 1000 denarii for a pair of good carrier pigeons. He is also considered the creator of the first official postal service - a network of "pigeon towers" throughout Syria and Egypt. The efforts of the sultan bore fruit: the news of the sudden seizure of the port of Damietta by the army of the French king Louis Saint in 1249 was conveyed to the Egyptian sultan Najm ad-Din also with the help of pigeons. This allowed the Muslims to quickly counterattack and defeat the Crusader King.

But pigeons helped not only to win wars. The famous merchant Nathan Rothschild owes his huge fortune to pigeons. During the Napoleonic wars, he sent his agents after the French army, whom he supplied with trained carrier pigeons. While Napoleon was gaining victories, English securities fell sharply in value. But after the defeat of the Napoleonic army at Waterloo, the value of these securities rose sharply. Thanks to the pigeon mail, Rothschild learned about this earlier than other merchants and bought the paper at a low price.

Pigeon postal lines

No post can be official without its main attribute - a postage stamp. The birthplace of the first stamp for pigeon mail is considered to be Great Barrier Island off the coast of New Zealand. Communication with the islands was difficult, it was still impossible to conduct a telegraph there, radio communication did not exist at that time. Only the birds remained, and in 1890 the idea arose to use pigeons for communication. The birds did the job so efficiently that in 1896, official and regular mail lines opened between Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, and the Barrier Reef Islands.

"Haming"

What makes the pigeons fly home, despite all the obstacles? In the scientific literature, this ability is called "homing" - the instinct to return home. Even today, scientists cannot fully explain the mechanism that allows pigeons to accurately determine the direction of flight, from many cities to find the right one, from thousands of similar houses to determine one and from hundreds of windows to find their own. The pigeon's brain is developed to such an extent that it can be called a natural computer.

This computer is capable of processing and storing huge amounts of information. Pigeons collect it using all their senses. Most of the volume of his skull is occupied by the eyes. They are designed in such a way that they remember only the necessary information, cutting off all unnecessary ones. Pigeons have very keen eyesight combined with an excellent memory. This allows them to form a route based on visual impressions.

In addition, nature has endowed pigeons with a special "inner magnet". It is located at the base of the beak and is called the "magnetic receptor system". With its help, the newly hatched chick determines and remembers the level of magnetic tension near its nest. And he will never forget this information.

In addition to the magnetic "navigator", the pigeon also has an infrasonic "sensor" that allows it to pick up vibrations below 10 hertz! In this way, pigeons learn about impending storms, changes in weather and the direction of the wind. Modern researchers also suggest that pigeons are capable of smelling (although most birds have a rather weak sense of smell).

And finally, over the long years of life side by side with man, birds have learned to use his roads. Since ancient Roman times, carrier pigeons in Italy have flown from Rome to the north and back along the Via Aurelia, an old coastal route that connected the Eternal City with Gaul (present-day France) in 241 BC. Italian scientists have found that modern birds also follow this route. The ancient road has become a landmark for thousands of generations of carrier pigeons. How they pass this information on to their descendants is still a mystery.

Training

But don't expect the pigeon to obediently deliver your messages from the moment it gets on the wing. Sometimes training is quite time consuming. And of course, among the pigeons there are more responsible and capable of postal work, and there are also lazy people - all like people!

As soon as the chicks begin to fly confidently enough, that is, approximately in the third week of their life, they are released into free flight, accompanied by an experienced leader. This will ensure they get home. From the many chicks flying around the nest, an experienced pigeon breeder must choose a few of the most quick-witted, best oriented on the terrain. He will train them further, individually.

The selected pigeons are gradually taken away from the house and released. In the first year, pigeons are not trained over a distance of 320 kilometers. The first flights also need good weather. In order not to discourage the birds from returning, the pigeon house must catch them very carefully. And finally, it is always more pleasant to return to where they are waiting for you. Therefore, it is important for carrier pigeons to choose a spouse. Otherwise, they can find themselves a mate in another place and abandon their native nest. But the pigeons “steamed”, as the pigeons say, that is, they find a partner, once and for life! Indeed, marriages that are made in heaven.

Pigeon mail today

There are many reliable and fast means of communication these days: the Internet, mobile networks, telephone lines, airmail, after all. Is there a place for the carrier pigeon left in our lives now?

For many people, pigeon mail is a tradition, which they want and do not see the need to part with. One of these traditions has existed since antiquity. The ancient Greeks announced the victories of the Olympians by sending carrier pigeons to large cities. In 1996, following the ancient example of the Greeks, Slovakia sent out its “dovegrams” in honor of the Atlanta Olympics. They were provided with commemorative stamps. In the homeland of pigeon mail, New Zealand, pigeons fly annually along the well-trodden route between Auckland and the Barrier Reef Islands.

In addition, there are sports competitions, the so-called "olympiads" of pigeons. A sports carrier pigeon is a bundle of muscles enclosed in a perfect, streamlined body. He differs from his usual bluish counterpart, as a professional athlete from an ordinary fan. Every year the International Union of Pigeon Mail organizes special bird competitions.

Faster, cheaper, more efficient

But all this does not mean at all that pigeon mail has lost its practical purpose. In some conditions, pigeons can be much more reliable than a telephone cable, which can be cut. For example, in the 20th century, during the First and Second World Wars, they were successfully used by both the military and journalists. Pigeons were especially effective at short distances, to transmit urgent news or dispatches.

In a peaceful life, pigeons will also give odds even to airmail. At the end of the 20th century, an experiment was conducted in the Baltic States: who will deliver the letter to the addressee faster - an airplane, ground mail or a pigeon? To the surprise of the researchers, the pigeon was the first to cope with the task, ahead of all modern means of communication. Currently, pigeon mail has been preserved in Switzerland and Cuba, but pigeons are used for practical purposes in other countries as well. In Holland, pigeons still save lives - they deliver test tubes with donated blood to hospitals. It turned out to be faster and cheaper than delivery by car. In Belgium, pigeons carry classified information on special chips - tiny in size, but capable of accommodating the entire text of the Bible!

The emergence of modern information carriers will not shorten, but, on the contrary, prolong the life of pigeon mail. Chips and memory cards weigh much less than the previous notes, and they hold much more information. It is not always safe to transmit it via the Internet, and the pigeon can quickly deliver it to the addressee. Unlike a courier, you can always rely on him: he is not subject to so-called "human factors", he will not be bribed by competitors. The main thing is to feed it properly, and you will have your own small supercomputer, created by nature and polished by man.

Pigeon mail is considered by many to be an outdated fashion. In vain. The unique instinct of pigeons, in science called "homing", made these birds indispensable for humans in ancient times, and light memory cards turned them into the most effective postmen.

Origins

Domestic pigeons descended from the wild rock (rock) pigeon that still lives in southern Europe, North Africa and South Asia, nests on rocks and high steep banks. One of the earliest messages about pigeon mail can be found in the Old Testament. Noah releases a dove from the ark and awaits its return. And the dove does indeed return with an olive branch in its beak - a sign that the earth has become habitable again.

Pigeon mail was known in Ancient China, Greece, Egypt. The Roman historian and naturalist Pliny the Elder described how the commandant of the besieged Mutina Decius Brutus in 43 BC managed to notify the consul Girtius of the attack on the city, and he arrived in time with troops to rescue. During the Gallic War, Caesar exchanged messages with his supporters in Rome using carrier pigeons.

Price information

As we can see, a special impetus to the development of pigeon mail was given by military operations, which, without stopping, have been going on on earth since ancient times. War is a time when the fate of cities, armies, and even entire nations depends on accurate and timely information. The Egyptian Sultan Nur ad-Din paid 1000 denarii for a pair of good carrier pigeons. He is also considered the creator of the first official postal service - a network of "pigeon towers" throughout Syria and Egypt. The efforts of the sultan bore fruit: the news of the sudden seizure of the port of Damietta by the army of the French king Louis Saint in 1249 was conveyed to the Egyptian sultan Najm ad-Din also with the help of pigeons. This allowed the Muslims to quickly counterattack and defeat the Crusader King.

But pigeons helped not only to win wars. The famous merchant Nathan Rothschild owes his huge fortune to pigeons. During the Napoleonic wars, he sent his agents after the French army, whom he supplied with trained carrier pigeons. While Napoleon was gaining victories, English securities fell sharply in value. But after the defeat of the Napoleonic army at Waterloo, the value of these securities rose sharply. Thanks to the pigeon mail, Rothschild learned about this earlier than other merchants and bought the paper at a low price.

Pigeon postal lines

No post can be official without its main attribute - a postage stamp. The birthplace of the first stamp for pigeon mail is considered to be Great Barrier Island off the coast of New Zealand. Communication with the islands was difficult, it was still impossible to conduct a telegraph there, radio communication did not exist at that time. Only the birds remained, and in 1890 the idea arose to use pigeons for communication. The birds did the job so efficiently that in 1896, official and regular mail lines opened between Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, and the Barrier Reef Islands.

"Haming"

What makes the pigeons fly home, despite all the obstacles? In the scientific literature, this ability is called "homing" - the instinct to return home. Even today, scientists cannot fully explain the mechanism that allows pigeons to accurately determine the direction of flight, from many cities to find the right one, from thousands of similar houses to determine one and from hundreds of windows to find their own. The pigeon's brain is developed to such an extent that it can be called a natural computer.

This computer is capable of processing and storing huge amounts of information. Pigeons collect it using all their senses. Most of the volume of his skull is occupied by the eyes. They are designed in such a way that they remember only the necessary information, cutting off all unnecessary ones. Pigeons have very keen eyesight combined with an excellent memory. This allows them to form a route based on visual impressions.

In addition, nature has endowed pigeons with a special "inner magnet". It is located at the base of the beak and is called the "magnetic receptor system". With its help, the newly hatched chick determines and remembers the level of magnetic tension near its nest. And he will never forget this information.

In addition to the magnetic "navigator", the pigeon also has an infrasonic "sensor" that allows it to pick up vibrations below 10 hertz! In this way, pigeons learn about impending storms, changes in weather and the direction of the wind. Modern researchers also suggest that pigeons are capable of smelling (although most birds have a rather weak sense of smell).

And finally, over the long years of life side by side with man, birds have learned to use his roads. Since ancient Roman times, carrier pigeons in Italy have flown from Rome to the north and back along the Via Aurelia, an old coastal route that connected the Eternal City with Gaul (present-day France) in 241 BC. Italian scientists have found that modern birds also follow this route. The ancient road has become a landmark for thousands of generations of carrier pigeons. How they pass this information on to their descendants is still a mystery.

Training

But don't expect the pigeon to obediently deliver your messages from the moment it gets on the wing. Sometimes training is quite time consuming. And of course, among the pigeons there are more responsible and capable of postal work, and there are also lazy people - all like people!

As soon as the chicks begin to fly confidently enough, that is, approximately in the third week of their life, they are released into free flight, accompanied by an experienced leader. This will ensure they get home. From the many chicks flying around the nest, an experienced pigeon breeder must choose a few of the most quick-witted, best oriented on the terrain. He will train them further, individually.

The selected pigeons are gradually taken away from the house and released. In the first year, pigeons are not trained over a distance of 320 kilometers. The first flights also need good weather. In order not to discourage the birds from returning, the pigeon house must catch them very carefully. And finally, it is always more pleasant to return to where they are waiting for you. Therefore, it is important for carrier pigeons to choose a spouse. Otherwise, they can find themselves a mate in another place and abandon their native nest. But the pigeons “steamed”, as the pigeons say, that is, they find a partner, once and for life! Indeed, marriages that are made in heaven.

Pigeon mail today

There are many reliable and fast means of communication these days: the Internet, mobile networks, telephone lines, airmail, after all. Is there a place for the carrier pigeon left in our lives now?

For many people, pigeon mail is a tradition, which they want and do not see the need to part with. One of these traditions has existed since antiquity. The ancient Greeks announced the victories of the Olympians by sending carrier pigeons to large cities. In 1996, following the ancient example of the Greeks, Slovakia sent out its “dovegrams” in honor of the Atlanta Olympics. They were provided with commemorative stamps. In the homeland of pigeon mail, New Zealand, pigeons fly annually along the well-trodden route between Auckland and the Barrier Reef Islands.

In addition, there are sports competitions, the so-called "olympiads" of pigeons. A sports carrier pigeon is a bundle of muscles enclosed in a perfect, streamlined body. He differs from his usual bluish counterpart, as a professional athlete from an ordinary fan. Every year the International Union of Pigeon Mail organizes special bird competitions.

Faster, cheaper, more efficient

But all this does not mean at all that pigeon mail has lost its practical purpose. In some conditions, pigeons can be much more reliable than a telephone cable, which can be cut. For example, in the 20th century, during the First and Second World Wars, they were successfully used by both the military and journalists. Pigeons were especially effective at short distances, to transmit urgent news or dispatches.

In a peaceful life, pigeons will also give odds even to airmail. At the end of the 20th century, an experiment was conducted in the Baltic States: who will deliver the letter to the addressee faster - an airplane, ground mail or a pigeon? To the surprise of the researchers, the pigeon was the first to cope with the task, ahead of all modern means of communication. Currently, pigeon mail has been preserved in Switzerland and Cuba, but pigeons are used for practical purposes in other countries as well. In Holland, pigeons still save lives - they deliver test tubes with donated blood to hospitals. It turned out to be faster and cheaper than delivery by car. In Belgium, pigeons carry classified information on special chips - tiny in size, but capable of accommodating the entire text of the Bible!

The emergence of modern information carriers will not shorten, but, on the contrary, prolong the life of pigeon mail. Chips and memory cards weigh much less than the previous notes, and they hold much more information. It is not always safe to transmit it via the Internet, and the pigeon can quickly deliver it to the addressee. Unlike a courier, you can always rely on him: he is not subject to so-called "human factors", he will not be bribed by competitors. The main thing is to feed it properly, and you will have your own small supercomputer, created by nature and polished by man.

Before the discovery of radio communication, the most efficient, reliable and fast way of transmitting messages was pigeon mail. The maximum speed of a carrier pigeon is 80-100, and the average is about 40-60 kilometers per hour. The maximum distance (in summer, in ideal weather) is 1000-1200 kilometers. At short distances, the probability of death of birds on the way is too high, even if they are released in three, like counter-rubs. Although there are cases when pigeons managed to return home from a distance of two, three and even five and a half thousand kilometers.

The main feature of pigeon mail is worth emphasizing. The pigeon, being released, immediately returns to its usual dovecote, from where it was taken away in a basket or cage. You can't send a pigeon anywhere else. In George Martin's fantasy cycle A Song of Ice and Fire, scientists ravens deliver letters to any location on the map. But in reality, a pigeon can only "know" one address.

When flying over long distances, the pigeon is forced to land for "refueling", so the rate of movement is sharply reduced. At night, these birds are helpless. Usually pigeons do not rise above 100-150 meters and “creep” along the valleys. They do not like to fly over water for a long time - although they sometimes guess to cross the sea on the mast of a passing steamer.

How doves find their way has long been a mystery. Like many animals, they are sensitive to magnetic fields, but a compass will not help if you do not know their position relative to the target. The real "secret" of the dove is in the extremely accurate "internal clock" that allows it to accurately determine latitude and longitude from the position of the Sun.

The "date of birth" of pigeon mail is lost in the mists of time. Perhaps, for the first time this type of communication began to be used back in Mesopotamia in the 2-3 millennia BC. It is definitely known that in ancient Greece, "winged messengers" were widely used.

The Greeks used pigeons mainly “for peaceful purposes”. But the Romans back in 43 BC. e. during the siege of Mutins, military messages were also transmitted with their help. A regular state pigeon mail was organized by the Arabs in the 12th century.

For a long time, the use of carrier pigeons was limited by their high cost. Pigeons, which for thousands of years were bred for meat all over the world, like our city "sisari", could fly only from roof to roof. For long-distance communication it was required to create a new breed. In the 12-13th centuries, a special carrier pigeon cost the same as an Arabian horse.

Pigeon Post is a well-known phenomenon. There are many examples in history when pigeons delivered a message and saved people. In films, you can also often find a scene when, in a desperate situation or when you need to urgently deliver important information, a pigeon is released from the cage with a piece of paper tied to its leg and he brought it where necessary.

But what about a pigeon arriving "where it should be"?

Everything is simple here. The direction of flight of pigeons on long journeys is always the same - home. Pigeon mail is based on the phenomenon of returning home. The birds do not look for addresses, they just strive for their native nests. The birds are taken away from their homes to be sent back at the right time with a message. About a century and a half ago, in Europe, pigeon post stations were built with birds of two categories - "ours" and "strangers". To send letters, pigeons were selected from those places where they wanted to deliver mail.

Is there a breed of carrier pigeons?

In birds, nature has unique abilities that humans have long improved in the process of selection, domestication, and training. Homing pigeons do not exist as a separate breed. The best birds from experienced postmen are now selected for sporting events in terms of range and speed. Homing pigeons continue to be used for their intended purpose in the Swiss army for emergency messages, in India they are sent to hard-to-reach areas. In Holland, medicines are urgently sent with pigeons - this is the fastest way of delivery over short distances. People appreciate the unique abilities of birds, which help out in situations where traditional message delivery is not possible.

What pigeon will not leave the race?

According to statistics, the reliability of delivery of letters by pigeon mail is 90% on average. It is no coincidence that during the war years, the last hopes for salvation were pinned on birds. The winged postmen met the expectations of the people. There is a known case of the period of the First World War, when a wounded pigeon delivered a message about a lost battalion. Thanks to the bird, 194 people were saved.

During the Great Patriotic War, they organized the "pigeon mobilization". The reliability of the winged delivery of letters served as the basis for the approval of schemes for organizing communications in places of combat battles. Birds with a muscular physique, a large beak, and a beak are capable of long-distance flights. The birds reach their highest physical indicators at the age of 3-4 years. Pigeons carry loads, weighing one third of their own weight, 70-90 g. Winged postmen fly up to 1000 km, but the record holders covered much more distances. The birds are ahead of trains, reaching speeds of up to 150 km / h. A day flight at an altitude of 400 m can last up to 12 hours without rest. The pigeons rest at night. You can trust the mail to pigeons that have managed to find a mate. Monogamous people always strive to return to their soul mate. Lonely birds can stay on the side if they meet the only chosen one.

What is unique about carrier pigeons?

The secret of how pigeons find the right path remains not fully revealed. There are two main versions:

- equipping the beak of pigeons with a magnetic-receptor system - orientation occurs due to capturing changes in the earth's magnetic field;
- auditory perception of vibrations, vibrations in the spectrum of low-frequency sound waves.

The second version has the largest number of adherents. Many inhabitants of the planet, including humans, do not pick up sound less than 16 Hz. Pigeons perceive low-frequency signals, are able to orient themselves on them, maintain the correct course, since infrasound is characterized by low absorption in various media. A conventional map of the earth with the reflection of low-frequency waves in the noise of the forest, sea, buildings is read by birds during the flight to the smallest detail. The dove will fly to the window where they are expected. Pigeons are called natural computers for their unique navigation capabilities. The instinct to return to their native places distinguishes different birds, but not every bird is entrusted by a person with important information.

My ... And we will cut your wings ... "- haberdasher Bonacieux muttered angrily, scribbling a denunciation of D'Artagnan. However, the use of pigeons in the role postmen began long before the era of the French musketeers ...

A pigeon, of course, is not a two-legged courier - you cannot send it to any address. But to its native entrance, this bird returns with maniacal persistence, overcoming very long distances - up to 300 km. And individual, well-trained, carrier pigeons are able to find their homeland at a distance of more than a thousand kilometers!
Add to this the absence of obstacles and a solid speed (on average 60-70 km / h), and it becomes clear that in certain situations, when it is especially difficult, pigeons became simply irreplaceable.

"Symbol of peace" in the war

Broadcast mail messages pigeons were especially popular during the sieges of cities, when a rare daredevil managed to overcome the ring of enemy encirclement.
Pigeons were sent by the Roman Decimus Brutus during the siege of Mutina by Antony (43 BC), and the Dutch, besieged by the Spaniards, in the cities of Haarlem and Leiden (1570s).

But the first, seriously organized and regular, arose in 1870-71 during the Franco-Prussian War, when the Germans took Paris into the ring. The besieged townspeople first sent out news with the help of balloons. However, the balloons were uncontrollable - it was possible to send them outside the city limits, but you definitely cannot send them back to Paris.
It was then that the idea came to involve carrier pigeons... They were put in cages and sent in balloons through the enemy troops, so that they would then return with messages in return. Although only 57 out of 363 pigeons returned the first time, it was worth it.
A pigeon is not a horse, therefore, pigeon letters were written on very thin tissue paper, placed in a bag, which was attached to the bird's back, tail or leg. Then they came up with a more economical way ...
People brought letters to a special "pigeon" post office. There, the texts were typed in small print, typeset like a newspaper sheet, and then photographed with a large reduction. As a result, many messages fit on a thin microfilm, which was placed in a capsule and attached to the pigeons. At the place of receipt, the films were projected onto the screen, and special officials were rewriting the texts of the messages.
Now one pigeon at a time could deliver information with a capacity of 70 thousand words and bring 35 thousand francs to the state treasury from grateful mail clients.
They say that the Germans even tried to fight the feathered postmen with the help of hawks, but without much success.

Not without pigeons on the fields of two world wars. They were especially actively used in the First World War. There were even whole companies pigeon mail, and for greater mobility, mobile dovecotes were used. Accordingly, pigeons that were accustomed to one dovecote were transported to another, with which they were going to keep in touch. Remembering that war is war, the same dispatch was sent with three birds at once for reliability.

Of course, wire and radio communications gradually supplanted the postman pigeons, but birds continued to be used during World War II. Soviet researchers have calculated that in the period 1941-45. about 15 thousand "golubegrams" were sent.
Most distinguished birds military postmen often awarded. So, the pigeon Sher Ami in 1918 was awarded the French Military Cross, and the Commando pigeons and the soldier Joe in 1945 were awarded the British Deakin medal. The luckiest pigeon numbered "888" was given the rank of colonel in the British Army, and was buried with honors after death.

Doves and Rothschilds

Important advantages pigeon mail there was secrecy and, most importantly, the efficiency of information. Even the ancient Greeks sent out pigeons with lists of the names of the winners of the Olympic Games.

But the most striking example is the story of the famous Rothschild financial empire... According to legend, thanks to carrier pigeon Nathan Rothschild was the first in Britain to learn of the victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. This allowed him to conduct a successful operation with French securities and earn a fabulous fortune.

The pigeon turned out to be a good assistant and reporters. Until the radio was invented, the editors received information about sailing regattas with the help of pigeons, which were previously placed in dovecote on yachts.
However, this method of transmitting urgent information was also practiced by Reuters in 1962 so that the correspondents would not waste time standing in traffic jams.

Has not always served a legitimate and specious purpose. So in the days of Napoleon, when there was a customs war between England and France, pigeons often helped smugglers to transfer precious stones from the island to the continent. Even now, in the regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, these birds are used as ... drug couriers delivering heroin.

Joke:
"-" And they personally asked to convey "- said the carrier pigeon and shit on the head of the recipient of the letter."

Communication without borders

There have been times when carrier pigeons turned out to be the only way to deliver messages. For example, on long sea voyages. Even the ancient Egyptians took with them carrier pigeons during sea voyages, and then it became a common practice among other sailors.

It was the pigeon that brought the last news from the Swedish Arctic explorer Solomon André. In 1897, together with two companions, Andre flew in a balloon with Svalbard, wishing to reach the North Pole. Soon, an encouraging pigeon message arrived - they say, everything is fine - and after that there was neither a rumor nor a spirit about the expedition for 33 years ... Until the remains of the brave polar explorers were found on one of the northern islands.

By the way, about the islands ...
In the second half of the 19th century, when airmail it was not yet, and the steamers went slowly, the inhabitants of the islands remembered about the pigeons. In particular, a similar thought struck a man named Fricker, a resident of Great Barbier Island. Dissatisfied with the fact that mail steamer between the island and the New Zealand port of Auckland ran only once a week, he decided in 1898 to establish a regular pigeon mail.
As a result, letters began to be delivered daily. The fastest pigeon with the speaking nickname Velocity could cover the distance between Great Barbier and New Zealand (90 km) in just 50 minutes. The idea was so successful that even special forms and triangular stamps were published - first postage stamps for bluegram.

Joke:
“- You know, I had a carrier pigeon, but died during the execution ...
- Like this? Shot?
- Well no! They knocked it down at the post office when the stamp was put ... ".

So it can still come in handy in critical circumstances. For example, today, in remote and inaccessible areas of England, pigeons are used for blood samples in hospitals for analysis.