In ancient times, why were pigeons used for sending messages?

Pigeons were used for sending mes sages not only in ancient times, but as recently as early the 1900s, dur ing World War I. A particular breed of pigeons called homing pigeons are specially suited for carrying messages, because they possess the uncanny ability of flying back their home over long distances high speeds. According to some re ports, a homing pigeon flew back to its home after flying over 1600 miles at the peak speed of 60 miles per hour. Exactly how such birds navigate themselves is still not clear. Scientists hypothesise that the pigeon uses a variety sources like the direction of the Sun, Earth’s magnetism, and odours associated with different places for finding its direction. Be fore the advent of telegraph, tele phone and radio, using pigeons for sending messages was quite pop ular among the military, newspa pers, and stock brokers. Such messaging system was known as pigeon post.