this ability in the highest degree. No other species of bird has been studied with 

 the same degree of care as has this one. It has been employed in war, in sport, 

 and in many scientific experiments. The reason why this bird has been so largely 

 used as a homer is due to the fact that it dwells happily under conditions of 

 domestication. After having been reared in a certain spot, the pigeon seems 

 desirous always of returning to the same spot as quickly as possible. If it has con- 

 structed a nest and has eggs or young, it seems still more anxious to return. Prob- 

 ably many other birds would make just as fit subjects for experiment if we could 

 get them to live under conditions similar to those of the pigeon. All migrating 

 birds, such as the robin, wild goose, bluebird, etc., certainly must possess the 

 homing instinct, yet it is hard to make experiments upon them for the reason 

 that such birds, if kept in captivity for a long time, have little or no desire to 

 return to the scene of captivity after having been taken to a distance and put at 

 liberty. The enormous man-o'-war bird has been used probably for centuries for 

 carrying messages between certain oceanic tribes. From my knowledge of this 

 bird I venture to guess that experiments in the future will show that it can eclipse 

 all others in its homing powers. This bird is extremely strong, has an enormous 

 wing surface, flies very high, and can thus take advantage of the higher and 

 steadier air currents, and in addition can go for days without food. I have Httle 

 doubt of this bird's ability to get back to its nest in the Bahamas from Greenland 

 or from any other point, provided the pathway which the bird had to take were 

 partly over the ocean and partly over the land, thus afifording food on the one 

 hand and sleeping-places on the other. Notwithstanding the large number of 

 migrating birds and the amount of time naturalists have spent in studying their 

 habits, our knowledge of the causes of migration and the way in which the birds 

 accomplish it is strangely inexact. Even the multitude of observations which the 

 United States government has made upon the migration of birds gives us but little 

 insight into the hidden way in which distant orientation is efifected. 



Let us look for a moment a little more closely into the training and the 

 homing records of the homing pigeon. How necessary is training to make a good 

 flier? From how great a distance can he return over a land pathway? and from 

 how great a distance over a water pathway ? Most men who engage in the sport — 

 and what we know of the homing pigeon comes largely from the sporting man — 

 select their stock very carefully ; that is, they take the young birds which come from 

 parents that have made good long-distance records. Only a few of the birds even 

 of this selected stock turn out to be long-distance fliers. The young birds are 

 carefully reared, and when strong enough to fly they are carried to distances of 

 one-half, one, two, three, four, thirty-five, fifty, seventy-five, one hundred miles 

 successively and released. The distance is gradually increased until finally the 

 bird seems strong enough and experienced enough to try the prize distance of one 

 thousand miles. The more often a bird flies between any two points the more 

 quickly can he make the trip, other conditions being equal. The enormous rapid- 

 ity of fifty to ninety miles per hour which we so often hear of in the homing 



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