THE UNGRATEFUL PIGEONS Philip was a little boy, with a generous growth of freckles, and a loving heart.

" "Alas, no," said the cardinal; "my pigeons are my aristocratic acquaintance.

With us the carrier pigeon is an exotic, and is now acclimated, or naturalized.

The kitchen-garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately; but the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables, when he was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to him.

The neglected 'Three Pigeons' was just now the worst place in all Water Lane.

[The carrier-pigeon is a bird.

The blue house-pigeon is the variety principally reared for the table in this country, and is produced from our farmyards in great numbers.

The carrier-pigeon is not a modern invention, but was made simultaneously with other ornithological curiosities.

A wood-pigeon would be the death of me.

"'The hawk then said, "I am Indra, O virtuous king, and this pigeon is Agni, the carrier of the sacrificial clarified butter.

" "I'm afraid so; but she amuses Bob, and there's always a hope of moving her father through her, though she declares that the Three Pigeons is his tenderest point, and that he had as soon meddle with it as with the apple of his eye.

The 'Three Pigeons' had been an attraction to the servants waiting with their ladies' carriages during the entertainments, and though they had not meddled much with the simple element, spirits had not neutralized the mischief.