Back in the day, if you were to give a letter to a carrier pigeon, how would the pigeon know to deliver the letter to Maggie McDoodle over at 24-102 MacFerggle Street (or whatever)? How did the pigeon know who the proper recipient of the letter was? And was it common for pigeons to accidentally deliver a letter to the wrong contact?

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
    36·
    12 hours ago

    You would raise the pigeon and the pigeon would know how to fly back there always. They weren’t sent to addresses, rather, to one particular spot.

    Say you have five pigeons. You put a ring on them that says the town and owner. You send them in a cage via cart or boat etc. to five different towns, to people you know can also keep pigeons. Those people receive your pigeon, as well as pigeons from other locations.

    When they need to send a message to you or your town, they find your pigeon and attach a message. Then they release it. The pigeon flies back to you. If you want to reply, you need to have a pigeon raised in that particular town. Tough luck otherwise.

    You keep your pigeon for a while again, then you cage it and send it elsewhere - the cycle repeats.

    Bear in mind pigeons can’t carry very long messages. The paper scroll can’t be too large or the pigeon won’t fly properly/the wind drag will tear the scroll away if too large. Think of them as a primitive telegram of sorts. Messages longer than a telegram of course, but nowhere near anything like a regular letter. So they were usually reserved for stuff like “we’re under siege, help”, “this important person passed away”, “we got the plague, keep out”, or any other short messages of importance.