The Orientation of Birds 105 



example, to struggle against a violent wind. It is, then, very natural 

 that, endowed with different degrees of ability, our Pigeons leaving 

 together in perfect unison, should have, little by little, become 

 separated from each other on the route. 



A Pigeon from Mons, finding himself in the midst of a band of 

 companions flying toward Charleroi, followed them as far as their 

 destination. Then seeing each one of them disperse, in order to 

 regain his own home, he remained alone, lost on the roofs of an 

 unknown city. Now, Mons is not far from Charleroi, and it would 

 be sufficient for our traveler to raise himself in the air to see, perhaps, 

 his natal roof. He does not do so ; having in the course of his 

 preceding journeys contracted the habit of using only the sixth 

 sense for distant orientation, he does not dream for an instant of util- 

 izing his sight. Resuming in an inverse sense the road followed to 

 come to Charleroi, he arrives at Orleans at the point where he had 

 been liberated that very morning. Tired with the long trip accom- 

 plished during the day, he rests there one night. The next day he 

 takes his bearings and finds again the 'reverse scent' of the road 

 practiced two days before in the railway train, and reaches Mons. 

 The thirty-two Pigeons which reappeared at Orleans the evening of 

 the release, only to disappear the next day, very likel}' followed the 

 same rule of conduct. 



The example we have just cited is assuredly interesting. We have 

 based our statements on real occurrences, then when facts failed on sim- 

 ple conjecture, to explain the comings and goings of the Pigeons. We 

 have consequently in our deductions, if not certainty, at least a great 

 probability, which, however, does not quite satisfy us. We think, there- 

 fore, we ought to present a few cases more conclusive than the first. 



A Pigeon belonging to a colombophile of Grand-Couronne alighted 



in the garden belonging to M. le G6n6ral M , at Evreux. We were 



to go that same day to Rouen. We carry away the lost Pigeon and 

 set him at liberty in the station of Grand-Couronne near his Pigeon 

 cote. The Pigeon takes his bearings and returns to Evreux, at M. le 



Gdn^ral M . Caught again, he is this time expressed in a postal 



package to his owner. Allowed to go free in the cote, he no longer 

 thinks of returning to Evreux. 



The Pigeon stopping to eat and rest at M. le G^n^ral M 's did 



not consider for one instant that unknown house as a new home: it 

 represented to him a point of journey followed before and, conse- 

 quently, must be a point of departure for future investigation. 

 After a few hours of rest he will set out again from there to resume 

 the 'reverse scent' of the aeriel path that led him to Evreux. He 

 only thinks of finding again his lost home. 



