<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section does not cite any sources . Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (January 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> During breeding season, usually during the warmer months, a male pigeon will court the female by puffing out his chest, bobbing his head and strutting in circles around her, all the while cooing his affections . If she accepts, she will allow him onto her back in order to copulate . After mating, the male will build a nest out of gathered sticks in a suitable crevice, while the female watches and makes changes . Urban birds will gladly use a roof on a building . The female will usually lay two eggs . The first egg would be laid late in the evening, and the other egg forty hours after, which will hatch in 17 to 20 days, depending on the weather . Both parents aid in rearing the nestlings . Fledglings usually leave the nest around four to five weeks after hatching . </P> <P> The sport of flying homing pigeons was well - established as early as 3000 years ago . They were used to proclaim the winner of the Olympics . Messenger pigeons were used as early as 1150 in Baghdad and also later by Genghis Khan . By 1167 a regular service between Baghdad and Syria had been established by Sultan Nour - Eddin . In Damietta, by the mouth of the Nile, the Spanish traveller Pedro Tafur saw carrier pigeons for the first time, in 1436, though he imagined that the birds made round trips, out and back . The Republic of Genoa equipped their system of watch towers in the Mediterranean Sea with pigeon posts . Tipu Sultan used homing pigeons . They returned to the Jamia Masjid mosque in Srirangapatna, which was his headquarters . The pigeon holes may be seen in the mosque's minarets to this day . </P> <P> In 1818, a great pigeon race called the Cannonball Run took place at Brussels . In 1860, Paul Reuter, who later founded Reuters press agency, used a fleet of over 45 pigeons to deliver news and stock prices between Brussels and Aachen, the terminus of early telegraph lines . The outcome of the Battle of Waterloo was also first delivered by a pigeon to England . During the Franco - Prussian War pigeons were used to carry mail between besieged Paris and the French unoccupied territory . In December 1870, it took ten hours for a pigeon carrying microfilms to fly from Perpignan to Bruxelles . </P>

When were pigeons first used to carry messages