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Pigro

Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . A CARRIER-PIGEON here CHAPTER XXIII. A CARRIER-PIGEON When, three hours after sunset, on the 23d of March, the Gallian moon rose upon the western horizon, it was observed that she had entered upon her last quarter. She had taken only four days to pass from syzygy to quadrature, and it was consequently evident that she would be visible for little more than a week at a time, and that her lunation would be accomplished within sixteen days. The lunar months, like the solar days, had been diminished by one-half. Three days later the moon was in conjunction with the sun, and was consequently lost to view; Ben Zoof, as the first observer of the satellite, was extremely interested in its movements, and wondered whether it would ever reappear. On the 26th, under an atmosphere perfectly clear and dry, the thermometer fell to 12 degrees F. below zero. Of the present distance of Gallia from the sun, and the number of leagues she had traversed since the receipt of the last mysterious document, there were no means of judging; the extent of diminution in the apparent disc of the sun did not afford sufficient basis even for an approximate calculation; and Captain Servadac was perpetually regretting that they could receive no further tidings from the anonymous correspondent, whom he persisted in regarding as a fellow-countryman. The solidity of the ice was perfect; the utter stillness of the air at the time when the final congelation of the waters had taken place had resulted in the formation of a surface that for smoothness would rival a skating-rink; without a crack or flaw it extended far beyond the range of vision. The contrast to the ordinary aspect of polar seas was very remarkable. There, the ice-fields are an agglomeration of hummocks and icebergs, massed in wild confusion, often towering higher than the masts of the largest whalers, and from the instability of their foundations liable to an instantaneous loss of equilibrium; a breath of wind, a slight modification of the temperature, not unfrequently serving to bring about a series of changes outrivaling the most elaborate transformation scenes of a pantomime. Here, on the contrary, the vast white plain was level as the desert of Sahara or the Russian steppes; the waters of the Gallian Sea were imprisoned beneath the solid sheet, which became continually stouter in the increasing cold. Accustomed to the uneven crystallizations of their own frozen seas, the Russians could not be otherwise than delighted with the polished surface that afforded them such excellent opportunity for enjoying their favorite pastime of skating. A supply of skates, found hidden away amongst the stores, was speedily brought into use. The Russians undertook the instruction of the Spaniards, and at the end of a few days, during which the temperature was only endurable through the absence of wind, there was not a Gallian who could not skate tolerably well, while many of them could describe figures involving the most complicated curves. Nina and Pablo earned loud applause by their rapid proficiency; Captain Servadac, an adept in athletics, almost outvied his instructor, the count; and Ben Zoof, who had upon some rare occasions skated upon the Lake of Montmartre (in his eyes, of course, a sea), performed prodigies in the art. Dobryna’s This exercise was not only healthful in itself, but it was acknowledged that, in case of necessity, it might become a very useful means of locomotion. As Captain Servadac remarked, it was almost a substitute for railways, and as if to illustrate this proposition, Lieutenant Procope, perhaps the greatest expert in the party, accomplished the twenty miles to Gourbi Island and back in considerably less than four hours. The temperature, meanwhile, continued to decrease, and the average reading of the thermometer was about 16 degrees F. below zero; the light also diminished in proportion, and all objects appeared to be enveloped in a half-defined shadow, as though the sun were undergoing a perpetual eclipse. It was not surprising that the effect of this continuously overhanging gloom should be to induce a frequent depression of spirits amongst the majority of the little population, exiles as they were from their mother earth, and not unlikely, as it seemed, to be swept far away into the regions of another planetary sphere. Probably Count Timascheff, Captain Servadac, and Lieutenant Procope were the only members of the community who could bring any scientific judgment to bear upon the uncertainty that was before them, but a general sense of the strangeness of their situation could not fail at times to weigh heavily upon the minds of all. Under these circumstances it was very necessary to counteract the tendency to despond by continual diversion; and the recreation of skating thus opportunely provided, seemed just the thing to arouse the flagging spirits, and to restore a wholesome excitement. With dogged obstinacy, Isaac Hakkabut refused to take any share either in the labors or the amusements of the colony. In spite of the cold, he had not been seen since the day of his arrival from Gourbi Island. Captain Servadac had strictly forbidden any communication with him; and the smoke that rose from the cabin chimney of the was the sole indication of the proprietor being still on board. There was nothing to prevent him, if he chose, from partaking gratuitously of the volcanic light and heat which were being enjoyed by all besides; but rather than abandon his close and personal oversight of his precious cargo, he preferred to sacrifice his own slender stock of fuel. Hansa Both the schooner and the tartan had been carefully moored in the way that seemed to promise best for withstanding the rigor of the winter. After seeing the vessels made secure in the frozen creek. Lieutenant Procope, following the example of many Arctic explorers, had the precaution to have the ice beveled away from the keels, so that there should be no risk of the ships’ sides being crushed by the increasing pressure; he hoped that they would follow any rise in the level of the ice-field, and when the thaw should come, that they would easily regain their proper water-line. On his last visit to Gourbi Island, the lieutenant had ascertained that north, east, and west, far as the eye could reach, the Gallian Sea had become one uniform sheet of ice. One spot alone refused to freeze; this was the pool immediately below the central cavern, the receptacle for the stream of burning lava. It was entirely enclosed by rocks, and if ever a few icicles were formed there by the action of the cold, they were very soon melted by the fiery shower. Hissing and spluttering as the hot lava came in contact with it, the water was in a continual state of ebullition, and the fish that abounded in its depths defied the angler’s craft; they were, as Ben Zoof remarked, “too much boiled to bite.” At the beginning of April the weather changed. The sky became overcast, but there was no rise in the temperature. Unlike the polar winters of the earth, which ordinarily are affected by atmospheric influence, and liable to slight intermissions of their severity at various shiftings of the wind, Gallia’s winter was caused by her immense distance from the source of all light and heat, and the cold was consequently destined to go on steadily increasing until it reached the limit ascertained by Fourier to be the normal temperature of the realms of space. With the over-clouding of the heavens there arose a violent tempest; but although the wind raged with an almost inconceivable fury, it was unaccompanied by either snow or rain. Its effect upon the burning curtain that covered the aperture of the central hall was very remarkable. So far from there being any likelihood of the fire being extinguished by the vehemence of the current of air, the hurricane seemed rather to act as a ventilator, which fanned the flame into greater activity, and the utmost care was necessary to avoid being burnt by the fragments of lava that were drifted into the interior of the grotto. More than once the curtain itself was rifted entirely asunder, but only to close up again immediately after allowing a momentary draught of cold air to penetrate the hall in a way that was refreshing and rather advantageous than otherwise. On the 4th of April, after an absence of about four days, the new satellite, to Ben Zoof’s great satisfaction, made its reappearance in a crescent form, a circumstance that seemed to justify the anticipation that henceforward it would continue to make a periodic revolution every fortnight. The crust of ice and snow was far too stout for the beaks of the strongest birds to penetrate, and accordingly large swarms had left the island, and, following the human population, had taken refuge on the volcanic promontory; not that there the barren shore had anything in the way of nourishment to offer them, but their instinct impelled them to haunt now the very habitations which formerly they would have shunned. Scraps of food were thrown to them from the galleries; these were speedily devoured, but were altogether inadequate in quantity to meet the demand. At length, emboldened by hunger, several hundred birds ventured through the tunnel, and took up their quarters actually in Nina’s Hive. Congregating in the large hall, the half-famished creatures did not hesitate to snatch bread, meat, or food of any description from the hands of the residents as they sat at table, and soon became such an intolerable nuisance that it formed one of the daily diversions to hunt them down; but although they were vigorously attacked by stones and sticks, and even occasionally by shot, it was with some difficulty that their number could be sensibly reduced. By a systematic course of warfare the bulk of the birds were all expelled, with the exception of about a hundred, which began to build in the crevices of the rocks. These were left in quiet possession of their quarters, as not only was it deemed advisable to perpetuate the various breeds, but it was found that these birds acted as a kind of police, never failing either to chase away or to kill any others of their species who infringed upon what they appeared to regard as their own special privilege in intruding within the limits of their domain. On the 15th loud cries were suddenly heard issuing from the mouth of the principal gallery. “Help, help! I shall be killed!” Pablo in a moment recognized the voice as Nina’s. Outrunning even Ben Zoof he hurried to the assistance of his little playmate, and discovered that she was being attacked by half a dozen great sea-gulls, and only after receiving some severe blows from their beaks could he succeed by means of a stout cudgel in driving them away. “Tell me, Nina, what is this?” he asked as soon as the tumult had subsided. The child pointed to a bird which she was caressing tenderly in her bosom. “A pigeon!” exclaimed Ben Zoof, who had reached the scene of commotion, adding: “A carrier-pigeon! And by all the saints of Montmartre, there is a little bag attached to its neck!” He took the bird, and rushing into the hall placed it in Servadac’s hands. “Another message, no doubt,” cried the captain, “from our unknown friend. Let us hope that this time he has given us his name and address.” All crowded round, eager to hear the news. In the struggle with the gulls the bag had been partially torn open, but still contained the following dispatch: “Gallia! Chemin parcouru du 1er Mars au 1er Avril: 39,000,000 l.! Distance du soleil: 110,000,000 l.! Capte Nerina en passant. Vivres vont manquer et...” The rest of the document had been so damaged by the beaks of the gulls that it was illegible. Servadac was wild with vexation. He felt more and more convinced that the writer was a Frenchman, and that the last line indicated that he was in distress from scarcity of food. The very thought of a fellow-countryman in peril of starvation drove him well-nigh to distraction, and it was in vain that search was made everywhere near the scene of conflict in hopes of finding the missing scrap that might bear a signature or address. Suddenly little Nina, who had again taken possession of the pigeon, and was hugging it to her breast, said: “Look here, Ben Zoof!” And as she spoke she pointed to the left wing of the bird. The wing bore the faint impress of a postage-stamp, and the one word: “FORMENTERA.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1998). Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1353/pg1353-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

A CARRIER-PIGEON

Our Humble Helpers: Familiar Talks on the Domestic Animals by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE PIGEON CHAPTER XV. THE PIGEON “The strong resemblance that the tame pigeon often bears to the wild one known as the rock-pigeon makes us suspect this latter to be the ancestor of the bird that inhabits our dove-cotes. The rock-pigeon has ashy-blue plumage with black-spotted wings and pure-white tail. The neck and breast are changeable in color according to the light in which they are seen, and shine with a metallic luster, in which sometimes purple and sometimes golden green dominates.” “That is exactly the ordinary plumage of our pigeons,” said Emile. “When they come and peck the bread that I crumble for them in the sun, I like to see their magnificent breasts shining first with one color and then with another, every time the bird moves.” “Fond of traveling and endowed with a power of flight in accord with this predilection, the rock-pigeon is scattered over the greater part of the world. Nevertheless it is rare in France, where a few wretched pairs, always in dread of the talons of the bird of prey or the hunter’s shot, make their nests in the most sparsely settled cantons, on the shelves of high rocks. The rocky and mountainous regions [ ]of the Mediterranean islands are their chosen haunts in Europe.” 139 “But it is no uncommon thing,” Louis remarked, “to hear of wild pigeons being shot in this country.” “You confound the rock-pigeon, my friend, with another kind of wild pigeon, the wood-pigeon. This, as its name indicates, perches on the branches of tall trees, which the rock-pigeon never does.” “Yes, that’s so,” Jules interjected. “I have never seen pigeons that are descended from the rock-pigeon alighting on trees. They alight on rocks, on roofs, or on the ground.” “In its free state the rock-pigeon builds its nest in the hollows of rocks; the wood-pigeon, on the contrary, builds in trees, in the depths of dense forests, where it finds in abundance the acorn and beech-nut, its principal food. These habits are not the only difference between the two birds. The wood-pigeon is much larger; its breast has the color of lees of wine; its neck, gleaming with variegated metallic glints like that of its brother, is further adorned on each side with a white spot in the shape of a cross. Its flight is sustained and rapid, its cooing sonorous, its sight piercing. It feeds on all sorts of seeds, especially acorns, which it swallows whole. “Wood-pigeons like to perch on dead branches at the tops of trees. During the cold winter mornings they stay there motionless, waiting for a little warmth to come with the rising sun and arouse them from their torpor. In summer they frequent full-grown forest-trees, and their cooing may be heard in [ ]the very midst of the dense foliage. Their nesting place is by preference at the junction of several forking branches. The male goes forth and gathers from neighboring trees, never from the ground, the building material of dry twigs. If he sees a dead twig attached to the branch on which he is perching, he seizes it with his claws, sometimes with the beak, and tries to break it either by leaning on it with all his weight or by pulling it toward him. Possessed of his prize, he returns at once to his mate, who contents herself with putting the materials into place without taking part in getting them. In building the nest, therefore, the male is the worker and the female the architect; but an architect without talent, we must admit, for the structure is nothing but a mass of intertwined sticks without lining of feathers and flock, and, worse still, without firmness. Hence it is not unusual for this nest to fall to pieces before the brood has taken its flight; fortunately the strong branches on which it rests save the young ones from a disastrous fall. 140 “Wild and mistrustful, the wood-pigeon has never been willing to accept the calculated hospitality of the pigeon-house; it prefers the perilous life of the woods to the full-fed existence of servitude. This is the wild pigeon that frequently falls before the hunter’s fire. In certain defiles of the Pyrenees it is caught with large nets, hundreds at a time. The rock-pigeon, on the contrary, has from time immemorial been dependent on man; and in return for the shelter of the pigeon-house which protects it from [ ]birds of prey it has been willing to forget so completely the rocks where it first nested that to-day one seldom finds, at least in our country, any wild pairs. 141 “Not all our pigeons, however, show the same degree of tameness; far from it. Some, voluntary captives rather than real prisoners, are faithful to the pigeon-house only as long as they find suitable food in the neighboring fields, whither they go in flocks. If the house is not to their liking, or if food is lacking, they seek another abode, the more adventurous sometimes even returning to the wild life. The others, thoroughly enslaved, have completely lost their desire for independence. Seldom do they leave their roof, and some are such stay-at-homes that the most pressing hunger could not make them go out and try to find a little food for themselves in the neighboring furrows. Food must always be given them, for they are incapable of procuring it themselves. Domestic Pigeon “Those first mentioned, the pigeons that venture afield and find food for themselves, are called rock-pigeons, after the wild pigeon whose ways, and frequently whose plumage, they have retained in part. They are also known as flighty pigeons (fuyards), either on account of their occasional distant expeditions, or because they sometimes take flight from the pigeon-house and never return. They are the least costly to raise, but they are small and not very productive, as they lay only two or three times a year. The second kind, those that scarcely ever leave the pigeon-cote and cannot do without our care, are [ ]called cote-pigeons. Their maintenance costs more because they must be fed all the year round; but in compensation they do not ravage the neighboring harvests, which cannot be said of the rock-pigeons; and beside they are much more productive, their periods of laying numbering as many as ten a year. Modified from the earliest times by man’s intervention, the cote-pigeon includes a number of varieties in which the traits of the primitive species are often no longer recognizable. Let us mention some of these. 142 Pouter Pigeon “First of all are the pigeons with feathered legs and feet, looking as if they wore gaiters. This growth of feathers reaches to the very tips of the [ ]claws, forming a cumbersome and unsightly sort of footgear which is found to be due to captivity, the wild bird never having anything of the kind. Then come the pouter pigeons, which have the faculty of swallowing air and inflating the crop in a large ball, so that the base of the neck seems to be affected with the deformity known as goiter. That is their way of showing off: the larger the ball, the prouder they are of their figure.” 143 “What a queer idea,” Emile exclaimed, “to think it improves one’s looks to have a frightful goiter or to wear those feathered leggings that trail in the mud and interfere with walking!” “A life of idleness, my friend, engenders many caprices: examples abound in man even more than in pigeons. But let us get on; these things do not concern us. “Now, here are some pigeons that have their heads adorned with a crown of feathers, are shod like the preceding, and imitate in their cooing the roll of a drum.” “Then they ought to be called, from the roll of the drum, drummer-pigeons,” declared Emile. “You have hit it exactly: that is precisely their name. Here are others with trailing wings, tail erect and expanded like a fan, and the body in an almost continual state of trembling. You would say they had a fever. The spread tail gives them the name of fan-tails, while from their ceaseless shaking they are sometimes called shakers. Ruffled pigeons [ ]have the neck encircled with a ruff of disordered feathers. Jacobins wear a sort of hood resembling a monk’s cowl. The turbit carries on the nape of its neck a tuft of feathers thrown back and hollowed out like a shell. Tumblers are remarkable for their strange evolutions in the air: in mid-flight they will suddenly let themselves fall and turn a somersault as if shot in the wing. This recreation is their favorite pastime.” 144 Jacobins “The pleasure of a vertical fall,” remarked Jules, “accompanied by a somersault, must carry some fear with it. Perhaps that is what gives zest to this exercise.” “But the pigeon pulls up in time?” queried Emile. “Whenever it wishes to,” his uncle replied, “it brings to an end its downward hurtling from these airy heights, ordinary flying is resumed, and presently the tumbles begin again finer than ever. Here let us pause, without exhausting the list of varieties, amounting to twenty-four, counting only the principal ones. These few examples show you sufficiently what diversity pigeon-house life has stamped on the form, habits, and plumage of the primitive bird. “All pigeons, wild as well as tame, lay never more than two eggs to a hatching, from which generally spring brother and sister. The cares of brooding [ ]are shared by the father and mother alike, a practice found in no other tame bird. In the morning, when hunger makes itself felt, the female calls the male by a peculiar cooing and invites him to come and take her place on the eggs, which he does with alacrity. About three or four o’clock in the afternoon the rôles change. If the pigeon which until then has remained on the nest does not see its mate coming, there follows an anxious search, with admonitory cooings and, in case of need, admonitory peckings; and the laggard is brought back to the serious business of brooding. But as a rule the mother is irreproachably punctual; she returns to the nest at the hour agreed upon and does not leave it again until the next morning. Incubation takes seventeen or eighteen days. 145 “The little ones are born naked, blind, ungraceful. The father and mother, sometimes one, sometimes the other, feed them from the beak. This beak-feeding method of the pigeons is exceptional and deserves special consideration. I need not tell you how other birds feed their brood; any one that has ever raised a sparrow will know that.” “The little sparrow,” Jules hastened to explain, “opens its beak as wide as it can and the parents put into it the food they have brought, just as I put a grasshopper into it, or a piece of a cherry, or a soaked bread-crumb.” “Jules forgets,” said Emile, “that it is well to tap the little bird on the tail to excite its appetite and make it open its beak.”[ ] 146 “Emile’s improvement is not indispensable,” Uncle Paul replied. “If it is hungry the bird will open its beak without being asked. Into this beak that gapes so wide the parents put the point of theirs and drop whatever prize they have found; but if the little bird is very young the father and mother begin by half-digesting in their own stomach the food destined for the little one. Then they put their beak into the little one’s and disgorge the nutritious pap that they have prepared. “Well, pigeons do exactly the reverse: it is the father and mother that gape, and the little ones that plunge their beak deep down into the throat of the parent bird. The latter is then seized with a convulsion of the stomach accompanied by a rapid trembling of the wings and body. Little plaintive cries denote that the operation is perhaps not quite painless. From the crop thus done violence to, the half-digested nutritive matter comes up in a jet that passes into the half-open beak of the nursling. Twice a day the little pigeons receive their food in this way; twice a day, but no more, so painful to the nurses seems this mode of feeding from beak to beak.” “I should think,” said Jules, “that the parents would feel rather uncomfortable when the young pigeon tickles their throat, deep down, with its beak. If we can judge by what would happen to us, the stomach would rebel and would throw up its contents painfully.” “That is apparently the way of it. The disgorged [ ]food is a pap of seeds all ground up fine in the crop; but for the first three or four days after hatching a special food is given, fine and strengthening, suited to the weakness of the little one. It is a white substance, almost liquid, having the appearance of real milk. It does not come entirely from digested food; for the most part it consists of a sort of milkfood that is distilled by the stomach on this occasion only. So for the first days of the brood’s rearing the pigeons have, deep down in the throat, a sort of milk factory, or what one might call the equivalent of an udder.” 147 “That reminds me,” Jules interposed, “of a joke common enough among us fellows. When we want to gull some poor innocent, we tell him that pigeons suck. This jest comes nearer the truth than is commonly thought. Pigeons do not suck the breast, it is true, but it might well enough be said that they are suckled, since what they are fed on has so much resemblance to milk.” “Little pigeons stay in the nest a long time,” resumed Uncle Paul. “Entirely covered with feathers and almost as large as their parents, they still continue to receive parental care. To induce them to shift for themselves and give up their place when the time for a new laying approaches, some cuffs have to be given to these spoiled children that are so reluctant to leave home. But at last they consent, though not without returning from time to time to torment the mother with their lamentations and to beg her for something to eat. The father, less weak [ ]on the side of his affections, thenceforth receives these importunate lazy-bodies with a peck of the beak. 148 “Let us consider certain other details of the pigeon’s habits. I will not tell you, these things being pretty well known to you, of the cooings of the pigeon when it puffs out its throat, of its ceremonious salutations, its bowing to the very ground, its pirouettes when it shows off before its mate. I shall interest you more by acquainting you with its gregarious instinct, which impels it to assemble in immense flocks when it travels, in its wild state, to find food.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jean-Henri Fabre (2022). Our Humble Helpers: Familiar Talks on the Domestic Animals. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67073/pg67073-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

THE PIGEON

Field, Forest and Farm by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . CARRIER-PIGEONS CHAPTER LVIII. CARRIER-PIGEONS Resuming the subject of bird instinct as illustrated by the migratory flock’s unerring precision in finding its way over thousands of miles to a desired nesting-place, Uncle Paul continued as follows: “How is it that so many thousands, even millions, of migrating birds can direct their course through trackless space each to the particular rock or tree or nest left behind six months before, when the yearly removal was decided upon to some southern region a thousand miles or more distant? How, for example, does the frail swallow manage to find again, at the return of spring, its tiny abode in the north when it retraces the long journey of the previous autumn? In order that we may be sure it is the same swallow returned to the same nest we tie a colored string, as I have said, around the bird’s claw; and, lo and behold, when April comes, with it comes our swallow to its dwelling under the eaves. It is indeed our identical bird and no other; it is the very one that fashioned the nest of clay, cherished bit of private property now so eagerly taken possession of once more. The owner’s demonstrations of satisfaction and delight are convincing proof, even were the bit of red thread not there to dispel all doubt. “If the swallow is able to find its nest again upon returning in the spring from the land of the negroes, still more will it be able to find it after being removed merely from its native canton to the neighboring one. “A mother sitting on her eggs or feeding her young is taken, let us suppose, put into a basket, and carried quickly to a spot twenty or thirty leagues distant, where she is set free again. The surrounding country is unfamiliar to her: she has never been there before. Of the road over which she has just come she has not the slightest knowledge, having traveled it in the darkness of a closed basket. No matter. With only a moment’s hesitation she gets her bearings amid these strange scenes and takes flight toward her nest as unerringly as if it were possible to see the very roof under which repose her little ones. In a few hours we shall find her back again on her nest. “A like behavior under similar conditions might be witnessed in the case of divers other birds noted for strength of wing and power of sustained flight. They would return to their domicile in spite of the distance to be traversed and the unfamiliarity of the intervening country. Maternal love can accomplish wonders. In order to save her eggs from a chill or her little ones from starving in her absence, the mother-bird exercises a geographical skill as marvelous as that displayed at the period of migration.” “I have heard it said,” remarked Louis, “that the [ ]pigeon is very clever at finding its way over long distances, and that it is used for carrying letters from one place to another.” 324 “Yes,” replied Uncle Paul, “this aptitude for retracing the homeward way over vast distances is shown to an extraordinary degree by some of our domestic pigeons. Economizing all their strength for purposes of sustained flight, they have retained the wild pigeon’s pointed wings, sleek plumage, and symmetrical form. We call these birds carrier-pigeons, a name well earned, as you will see from what I have now to tell you. Carrier Pigeon “A pigeon having a brood of young is taken from the pigeon-house, put into a closed basket, and transported a distance of a hundred, two hundred leagues, or even further if you choose—from one end of France to the other. There it is set free. It rises in the air, circles about a few times as if to assure itself of the direction to be followed, and then starts off in impetuous flight toward the quarter where pigeon-house and young await its coming. “Does the bird catch sight of the pigeon-house as it circles about in the upper air? By no means; the distance is too great. Even should it rise to the [ ]height of the clouds, or to still greater altitudes, where moreover its wings could not sustain it, it would be unable to see its home. On the journey to the point where it was released it has had no passing glimpse of any object, shut up as it has been in the dark basket. The region it now traverses it sees for the first time. Nothing in the surrounding landscape is familiar, and yet its flight evinces the assurance that comes from having a definite goal in view. With a speed of about twenty leagues an hour it wings its way straight to the journey’s end. If the distance is too great to be covered without pause, halts are made here and there for food and rest; then the journey is resumed, swift as an arrow’s flight. Finally, at the end of some hours or days, according to the distance and the duration of the halts, the bird reënters the pigeon-house with its beakful of food for the waiting little ones. 325 “In serious situations the carrier-pigeon is a valuable messenger. During the winter of that terrible year, 1870–71, when the German hordes besieged Paris, no communication was possible by ordinary means between the invested city and the rest of France, in arms to repel the odious invader. With Paris rendered mute by its isolation, one might have said that the heart of the country had ceased to beat. For communication between those within and friends without, recourse was had to balloons and pigeons. “Certain persons of dauntless courage left Paris by balloon, choosing especially the night-time for their departure in order to avoid encounter by day. [ ]They carried with them despatches from Paris and a number of carrier-pigeons. Over the enemy camps they went, to alight somewhere, far or near, at the pleasure of the winds. Thus the provinces received despatches, newspapers, and private letters from Paris. The car of the balloon was loaded with all these. 326 “But how carry back to Paris despatches from the provinces? To leave a city by balloon in any chance direction is not so very difficult; but to return by balloon to the same city is practically impossible. The balloon goes as the wind wills, not as its passengers would like to have it go. To seek to return by the means employed in departing would be to compromise everything by incurring the risk of landing in the midst of the Prussian lines. “The only remaining expedient was to use those incomparable aids, the pigeons, which the aëronaut had taken with him on his departure. Released, one at a time, with despatches enclosed in a quill and fastened to the bird’s tail, they flew back over the German army to the pigeon-house; they reëntered Paris and brought news of what was going on in the provinces. “Do not imagine that the winged messenger was able to transmit only a few words or at most a few lines. It was not with a pen or on ordinary paper that the despatches entrusted to the pigeons were written. By ingenious methods and with unheard-of delicacy it was found possible to obtain characters so fine and sheets of paper so thin that a roll of these [ ]sheets weighing scarcely a gram and enclosed in a quill contained as much reading matter as ten printed volumes. What a marvelous piece of work, that package of letters fastened to the pigeon’s tail, that quill transformed into a library in which thousands of persons—friends, kinsfolk, statesmen—communicated their projects, their fears, their hopes! In this manner the mail service was maintained during those woeful times.” 327 About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jean-Henri Fabre (2022). Field, Forest and Farm. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67813/pg67813-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

CARRIER-PIGEONS

PIGEONS—continued.

DOMESTIC PIGEONS

Source The way we communicate is about to change — forever. Web3 is making waves as the brand new technological paradigm to change the internet as we know it. If you don’t know what web3 is — in short, it’s the same as web2, only it uses new technology to cut out the influence of a service provider. In other words, it’s purely the user, and the service, with no one intercepting the two. Speaking of interception, did you know that hackers can compromise your Spam, scams, and everything in between plagues most of the messaging apps we use today. Whatsapp account based off of a simple phone call? Coupling this with a platform’s ability to collect data on their users — with or without their consent in some cases, presents a violation that should not exist in any service. Keep in mind these messaging apps not only are just used for leisure, but for business and confidential matters as well. What if we could eliminate those problems — guarantee privacy, anonymity when needed, and have strict, defined rules for who exactly can contact us, in what context, and to identify bad actors swiftly? Enter, Web3 Messaging — the new, and better, armored, online carrier pigeon. Old vs New — How the hell is it different? Imagine you had a fleet of carrier pigeons. Each pigeon here represents a different messaging service and can deliver messages in their own separate language — think Instagram, Whatsapp, etc. On top of that, before the pigeon can deliver the message, they have to stop at a checkpoint to verify the message before it is sent. When each of these pigeons gets compromised in some way, such as a sickness (a hack or exploit) — the entire service goes down, or the majority of users are affected. Sometimes, the pigeon dies completely, and no one is able to send messages using that particular messenger anymore. If the central server goes down, or is compromised, then the entire service is rendered unavailable to its users. This is currently how Web2 services work as a whole. With Web3, it mitigates most of these problems. Web3 pigeons aren’t reliant on just themselves, rather the entire fleet works together to deliver the message. If one pigeon dies, the other one picks up the pace and gets it delivered. Each Web3 message is uber secure and impenetrable. No one except for the specified receiver(s) and the sender knows what’s in the message. These pigeons are smart, too — they know exactly who to deliver it to, and know exactly who to avoid. The lack of a service provider also guarantees privacy, as only the explicitly defined users can send or receive messages. This bypasses spam, reduces the likelihood of any scamming, and generally improves the user’s experience and privacy by magnitudes. Web3 is distributed, meaning a singular node or server going down will not affect a messaging service. Technical Hurdles with Web3 Messaging As with any new tech, there are some current challenges The primary hurdle right now is handling user identity and accounts. While most web3 messaging services do a good job handling this by allowing any Web3 identity to be used with their service, there are two foundational problems: Generating the web3 identity in the first place is typically not user friendly. Keeping your web3 identity safe is not universal for mainstream users, and also lacks UX/UI. This is mostly due to the fact that while you’re in control of your data, it means you also have more responsibility over your identity. Your accounts cannot just be recovered easily via email — each is a cryptographic key that, once lost, is lost forever. Overtime, these challenges will be solved. In fact, I’m already planning some ways to engineer web3 account recovery solutions, so stay tuned! What’s out there? So, is anyone doing this right now? The answer is: yes! Here are my top picks (the last one might be slightly biased >:D): — send and receive messages using the XMTP protocol, a second-layer protocol built on Ethereum using your Web3 identity. Relay.cc — A universal, Web3 Inbox. Email on Web3. Mailchain — built on Solana, as web3 messaging and notification platform. Dialect Uke (my own upcoming project) — I’m actually working on my own messaging protocol using Substrate and Polkadot tech. Think Discord — but with web3’s security. Overtime, I’ll probably be posting about it and its progress. It has messaging, identity, spam filtering, and more. Conclusion The future of the internet is upon us. A new age, where people can be more in control of what they contribute to the World Wide Web. It’s important to realize that we are still in the beginning stages of this new paradigm. Seemingly simple applications, such as messaging, still aren’t fleshed out. Web3 represents a more secure, faster, private, and robust version of the internet. Your data belongs to you — in theory, you should be in full control. This is the time to build, so let’s have fun doing it! pce out! Also published . here

The Evolution of Online Carrier Pigeons — Breaking Down Messaging in Web3

🌎 Storing and Processing GIS data : Storing and Processing GIS data has become really important nowadays as many organizations deal with geospatial data all the time. As you might know postgres offers a beautiful extension called ostgis that can be easily used to store, query and process spatial information. grouting extends postgis to provide geospatial routing functionality. P P Sometimes we have location data with respect to time. Such data is called spatiotemporal data and this data is very useful to track something or someone with respect to both space and time. Trajectories in Postgis can be used to handle but if your data is huge then you could make use of Geomesa or Geospark with Apache Accumulo and Geoserver to handle your spatiotemporal Bigdata. spatiotemporal data QGIS along with Timemanager plugin is a really cool open source way to visualize spatiotemporal data. ( ). You could also check out who has done some really cool stuff with qgis and timemanager. His articles and animations have helped a lot 🙏🏼🙏🏼 https://github.com/anitagraser Topi Tjukanov Special shoutout to mah boy Kepler.gl ( ) https://github.com/uber/kepler.gl 🌎 Pincode Mapping for India India has post offices and each one has its own service area. The service areas encompassed by every post office have their own unique Pincode so that a post office knows its bounds. So historically we have divided our cities and strategically placed post offices that could service the entire city. This data is valuable. It would be really cool if we could extrapolate the pincode from a given latitude and longitude. Dataset : Pincode Boundaries data for cities ( ) https://github.com/datameet/PincodeBoundary Pincode mapped to LatLongs ( ) https://github.com/sanand0/pincode/blob/master/data/IN.csv Algorithm With the Pincode Boundaries dataset we can isolate the latlong to a specific city using a bounding box and check which pincode polygon contains the given latlong (Pretty straightforward) but this method would prove to be ambiguous for the latlongs located on the edges of the polygons (Literal edge cases…smh) With the Pincode latlong dataset we can write a spatial KDtree algorithm to check for the nearest latlong in the database to the given latlong and map it to the corresponding pincode. This method is not as accurate as we could have several cases where a latlong is closer to another pincode than it’s actual pincode A simple function combining both algorithms into one import geopandas as gpd
from shapely.geometry import Point, Polygon
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from scipy import spatial
import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_csv('allindpincode.csv')
latlongs = df.iloc[:,2:]
d =  np.array(latlongs)
tree = spatial.KDTree(d)

data = gpd.read_file('allcitiescombined.geojson')

def getpincode(lat , long):
    lat = float(lat)
    long = float(long)
    p = Point(long,lat)
    for i in range(0,len(data)):
        if p.within(data['geometry'][i]) is True:
            pin = int(data['pin_code'][i])
        else:
            pin = 0
    if pin !=0:
        return pin
    else:
        latlongs = np.array([lat,long])
        result = tree.query(latlongs)
        pin = int(data1.iloc[[result[1]]]['postalcode'])       
    return pin I have written a simple python package encompassing these ideas to extrapolate pincode from a given latlong (FOR INDIAN CITIES) pip install git+https://github.com/Sangarshanan/Pincode-Mapping.git Sangarshanan/pincode-mapping from geopincoder import pincode_mapper as pm

pincode = pm.geocode.to_pincode(28.7041, 77.1025)

print(pincode) 🌎 Building a Routing Engine with Postgis and Pgrouting Building a routing engine is pretty easy especially with OSM being an immensely useful openly available source of road network data. Extract the .OSM file of any region you want to build a routing Engine for using osm extractor and selecting the bounding box t https://www.openstreetmap.org/expor Now go to Postgres and create a new database or use existing Create the extensions for postgis and pgrouting ( irst) install pgrouting f CREATE EXTENSION postgis;
CREATE EXTENSION pgrouting; We are using osm2pgrouting to easily import OpenStreetMap data into a pgRouting database ( ) https://github.com/pgRouting/osm2pgrouting Follow the instructions in the github page to compile the tool(osm2pgrouting) by making use of boost, libpqxx, expat and cmake osm2pgrouting — f Bangalore.osm — conf osm2pgrouting/mapconfig_for_cars.xml — dbname pgroute — username postgres — clean The above given command takes the OSM file that I had extracted for Bangalore and configures the road network that allow cars. Now the road network is saved as Nodes and Edges in the pgroute database . We can also perform incremental addition of data without using — clean Now using the database with the road network data, it becomes quite easy to extrapolate the road path between two latlongs Connect to the database with the tables generated using OSM2pgrouting Take the two latlongs (Source and Destination) and find the nearest node to both those latlongs Now that we know the nodes, we have to find the path between these nodes. (Imagine the road network as a simple graph and our problem is to find the shortest path between two nodes in the graph) We can make use of any path finding algorithm (Dijkstra algorithm) to calculate the edges the path contains between the given nodes <a href="https://medium.com/media/8cc1e9595bf668f19f3446d6c35d70b9/href">https://medium.com/media/8cc1e9595bf668f19f3446d6c35d70b9/href</a> The above attached gist gives us the function that can extrapolate the distance between two latlongs and gives you the answer in kilometers (Sorry America) You could also check out the flask app that me and my buds built to do Pincode mapping and Routing Sangarshanan/godseye Although it’s much easier to use Google maps or other API’s to solve this problem building your very own routing engine is kinda fun I recently also had the opportunity to use Graphhopper ( ), which is a cooler open source alternative API to google maps https://github.com/graphhopper/graphhopper Setting up a routing engine with Graphhopper is super easy. Just clone the repo, copy the osm file there and run the shell script git clone git://github.com/graphhopper/graphhopper.git
cd graphhopper; git checkout master
./graphhopper.sh -a web -i bangalore.som After running these you will see ‘Started server at HTTP 8989’, now go to http://localhost:8989/ and you should see a map of Bangalore. You should be able to click on the two points in the map and a route appears. The below attached python script can help you save the road network as a gpx plot and plot the same in a Jupyter notebook using ipyleaflet <a href="https://medium.com/media/c24c295a6696793a8594576334e0385c/href">https://medium.com/media/c24c295a6696793a8594576334e0385c/href</a> Hope this helps Check out some of the useful links that I copy pasted from https://medium.com/@tjukanov/animated-routes-with-qgis-9377c1f16021 https://eng.uber.com/engineering-an-efficient-route/ http://kazuar.github.io/visualize-trip-with-flask-and-mapbox/ http://map.project-osrm.org/ Peace ✌️

Building a Pincode Mapper and Routing engine with Postgis and pgrouting

Back in the late 1990s, the web looked pretty much like the Wild West; anyone could grab a piece of digital land, put a name on it and start catching the attention of millions of users at the time, with a very lean team of people. This is how it started when the Netscape team, after having released their browser, made it available to millions of people in, at the time, nascent web. Netscape later IPOed and made clear to the world, that the Web was much more than just a few computers connected. Ever since new entrants have learned to dominate the scene, yet, over the years one thing has become clear. The most important asset on the web is people’s attention. Thus, web companies learned how to grab it, manipulate it, until the Web became a meme machine. If there is one thing our brain is good at is at creating and passing on memes. And the web became its maximum expression. The meme machine didn’t just represent the Web. The Web was also driven by a , which we’ll call “attention merchant.” business model The era of attention merchants At the core, an attention merchant is a business that makes money by monetizing the attention of its people. More specifically, the attention merchant usually offers a free service, a frictionless experience, and releases it to the masses. Those masses share, and spread their “social experiences.” This model is by nature, asymmetric, hidden from the eyes of its distracted users, and abundant. The maximum expression of it it is the newsfeed. A slot-machine-like mechanism that allows people to spend hours scrolling through their screens, without conscious effort and no understanding of what goes on behind the scene. This process can’t be conscious, as it needs to be entirely driven by a willingness to show up no matter what. This content-generating machine is mostly grassroots-based, ready to be consumed by anyone, anywhere. Gossipping, once an essential tool for socializing, all of a sudden becomes an end in its own sake. The company that most depicts this is . A blue logo with a white “F” generated almost forty billion dollars in 2017, thanks to its unlimited, frictionless money-making machine. This money-making machine is advertising-driven. business model Facebook Hidden ads or what its founder calls “targeted ads” can be so subtle to be taken for real content. This we call innovation, and we admire as business people. Indeed, that innovation has been generating “engagement” for marketers and businesses across the world at a high price and high margins. This is pure business genius. Move fast with stable infrastructure For years, founder’s — Mark Zuckerberg– motto has been “move fast and break things.” This motto helped the company scale from a single computer in a dorm room to one of the largest tech companies in the world. Facebook’s Yet, back in 2017, that motto changed to “move fast with stable infrastructure.” This is a paradigm shift from both a technical and business standpoint. From a technical perspective, as Facebook has grown among the most popular sites on earth, it soon realized that its moving fast was also becoming too costly. Indeed, a bug, that once was not risky and inexpensive- in a platform where billions of people interact each day — that bug would have meant days and teams of people to fix it! Thus, from the business standpoint, this would have also caused large expenses and missed opportunities. However, there is a third and critical point — I argue. As those tech companies have such a reach, a simple bug can carry such a significant negative externality that any benefit they have created would be swept off in a matter of minutes. Negative externalities in the era of FAANG A few tech companies have become so ubiquitous and present in our daily lives, that we also have an acronym for their combined effects: FAANG. Those are , , , and , which now have their own index on Wall Street. Facebook Apple Amazon Netflix Alphabet’s Google It’s easy to measure their positive impact on society by looking at the number of interactions on Facebook, of Google’s searches each day, of Amazon’s transactions, Netflix’ watch time and Apple’s iPhones sold. It’s also easy to compute their growth and the wealth generated to its investors by looking at their financial statements. However, what’s hard yet truly important is the understanding of negative externalities those companies might carry. A negative externality happens when the social marginal costs exceed the social marginal benefits. In short, a company produces a net loss for society overall. This concept is well known especially in the industrial world, where a few companies pollute the environment and create a negative net balance for society overall. In those cases, there are two main routes, either we live with it, or the Government places a tax on those polluters. What if we tax attention? The Pigovian tax on attention’s polluters While pollution can be detected, negative social externalities tied to people’s “polluted attention” are hard to measure, let alone track. However, that should not discourage us from attempting. Companies that lock-us into their platforms for the sake of monetizing our attention might be entertaining us, but also creating a military of zombies. We might also argue that Facebook is an excellent tool for keeping us from thinking about the things that matter the most. Just like Roman Emperors used the formula of (bread and circuses) to distract the masses with ample food and entertainment. Facebook is pretty useful for that matter, and politicians might love it as it distracts us from their real agenda. panem et circenses Yet, not when it is used as a tool for political propaganda. Many might not like the Government intervention, but can the market do it on its own? What if the market takes care of itself? Another possible scenario is just to let things go and let the market take care of itself. As companies, like Facebook, trade attention for profit. That attention is evaluated by time to time by businesses that trade it for dollars. For instance, if I buy a hundred clicks on Facebook, as a business owner I also measure its conversions and if and how much it’s worth. So willingly or not I’m creating a marketplace for attention. So far Facebook has been pretty good in marketing its metrics (impressions, clicks, likes, and shares). Yet, what if businesses will soon realize those metrics aren’t good enough to justify a dedicated marketing budget? What if people are taught what happens in the “business backend?” Education (not schooling) is the critical ingredient for people’s freedom. On , I spend hours dissecting companies’ to understand what “motivates those companies.” I’ve been surprised in the last two years to see how many people don’t have an idea of how the companies that influence their daily lives make money. my own blog business models It’s almost like taking medicine from a doctor, to realize after you’ve become addicted, that person wasn’t a doctor but a drug dealer which in the process of making you an addict has become a millionaire. How would you react to that? Originally published at fourweekmba.com on January 30, 2019.

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