vii FLIGHT 269 



much in excess, not only of anything achieved in any 

 other race during that year, but of the velocity of any 

 of the birds competing in the same race, that I cannot 

 help hesitating to accept it as trustworthy. The 

 next best record for the year was seventy-one miles 

 per hour in an eighty-two mile race. 1 Even when the 

 conditions are most favourable, when there is a tail- 

 wind blowing — i.e., a wind carrying the birds towards 

 their destination — sixty miles an hour is a very 

 exceptional pace in a race of 100 miles and over. 

 When the weather is all that could be wished, fifty 

 miles per hour or slightly more is a velocity more 

 often recorded. In 1883 the average velocity of the 

 winning birds in eighteen of the races of the United 

 Counties Flying Club was thirty-six miles per hour, 

 the fastest having maintained a rate of fifty-five miles 

 for a distance of 208. 



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 

 at Volaterra; 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. 2 Of 

 the experiments in France I have not been able to 

 obtain any account at first hand. One flight is 

 reported to have been a very grand one, far surpassing 

 anything credited to a Homing Pigeon. A Swallow 

 was taken from Roubaix to Paris, a distance of 258 



1 See Burgess's Homing Pigeon Fanciers' Annual {or 1892. 



2 Pliny, Natural History, x. 34 



