rds are smaller than our London monsters and not quite so
brilliantly burnished. How many there are I have no idea; but since they
are sacred, their numbers must be ever increasing. Why they are sacred
is something of a mystery. One story states that the great Enrico
Dandolo had carrier-pigeons with him in the East which conveyed the
grand tidings of victories to Venice; another says that the same heroic
old man was put in possession of valuable strategic information by means
of a carrier-pigeon, and on returning to Venice proclaimed it a bird to
be reverenced. There was once a custom of loosing a number of pigeons
among the crowd in the Piazza on Palm Sunday. The birds being weighted
floundered downwards and were caught and killed for the pot; but such as
escaped were held to have earned their liberty for ever.

[Illustration: THE PRESENTATION
FROM THE PAINTING BY TITIAN
_In the Accademia_]

At night no doubt the pigeons roost among S. Mark's statuary and on
convenient ledges in the neighbourhood; by day, when not on the pavement
of the Piazza, the bulk of the flock are dotted about among the reliefs
of the Atrio, facing S. Mark's.

They have no timidity, but by a kind of honourable understanding they
all affect to be startled by the bells at certain hours and the midday
gun, and ascend in a grey cloud for a few seconds.

They are never so engaging as when flying double, bird and shadow,
against the Campanile.

Their collective cooing fills the air and makes the Piazza's day music.

Venetians crossing the Piazza walk straight on, through the birds, like
Moses crossing the Red Sea; the foreigners pick their way.

What with S. Mark's and the pigeons, the Campanile and coffee, few
visitors have any time to inquire as to the other buildings of the
Piazza. Nor are they of much interest. Briefly they are the Old
Procuratie, which forms the side on which the clock is, the Atrio or
Nuova Fabbrica opposite S. Mark's, and the New Procuratie on the
Campanile side. The Old Procuratie, whose main row of windows I once
counted, making either a hundred or a hundred and one, is now offices
and, above, residences. Here once abode the nine procurators of Venice
who, under the Doge, ruled the city.

The New Procuratie is now the Royal Palace, and you may see the royal
lackeys conversing with the sentinels in the doorway by Florian's. It is
the finer building: over the arches it has good sprawling
Michael-Angelesque figures,