106 THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS 



that there was a tail-wind to help the birds. With 

 regard to the 80-mile race, the only meteorological 

 note is " weather hazy." In the Working Homer, 

 a high authority lays it down that a tail-wind is not 

 absolutely essential to good " times " ; what is all- 

 essential is ant icy clonic weather. A cyclone is 

 disastrous to them. In a light breeze during an 

 anticyclone it is recorded in this treatise that a 

 Homing Pigeon flew from Banff to North Hants at 

 the rate of 1,900 yards per minute, or 62 miles an 

 hour, an astonishing pace. The author tells of a 

 celebrated bird " Vonolel," which in two races 

 maintained a velocity of over a mile a minute. 

 Unfortunately he gives no record of the weather. 



In France the experiment has been made of 

 employing Swallows in place of Homing Pigeons. 

 The idea is a very ancient one, for Pliny tells us that 

 a certain Roman knight, who wished to let his friends 

 atVolaterrae (in Tuscany) know who had won the 

 chariot races, used to take with him to Rome — a 

 distance of 130 miles — some Swallows, which he let 

 loose after dyeing them the colour of the winner. 

 Of the experiments in France I have not been able 

 to obtain any accounts at first hand. One flight is 

 reported to have been a very grand one, far sur- 

 passing anything credited to a Homing Pigeon. A 

 Swallow was taken from Roubaix to Paris, a distance 

 of 258 kilometres, or 160 English miles, and in 90 

 minutes from the time of its liberation at Paris it 

 was back again. It had kept up a pace of 106 miles 

 per hour ! * This may seem incredible, but the 



* See an article quoted from the Globe in the Zoologist. for 1887, 

 p. 397. In the Homing News for Sept. 13, 1889, is an account 

 apparently of the same flight, the distance being given as 250 

 kilometres. 



