VISION, 229 
ing business to transact at Paris, laid a wager of 
filty Napoleans ($200) that he would let his friends 
know of his arrival within three hours, and as the 
distance is a hundred leagues, the bet was eagerly 
taken. He accordingly took with him two carrier 
pigeons which had young at the time, and on arri- 
ving at Paris at ten o’clock in the morning, he tied 
a letter to each of his pigeons, and despatched 
them at eleven precisely. One of them arrived at 
Cologne at five minutes past one o’clock, and the 
other nine minutes later, and consequently they had 
performed nearly a hundred and fifty miles an hour, 
reckoning their flight to have been in a direct line. 
But their rapidity was probably much greater if they 
took a circular flight, as we have concluded from 
the observation of facts. Audubon proves that the 
American passenger pigeon (Columba migratoria) 
can fly at least a mile in a minute, and this isa 
heavier bird than the carrier pigeon. The flight 
of the carrier pigeon, however, is, if we may trust 
to the facts recorded, very various. Lithgow, the 
traveller, tells us that one of them will carry a let- 
ter from Babylon to Aleppo (which is thirty days’ 
journey) in forty-eight hours. In order to measure 
the speed of the bird, a gentleman some years ago 
sent one from London, by the coach, to a friend at 
Bury St. Edmunds, and along with it a note, desi- 
ring that the pigeon, two days after its arrival there, 
might be thrown up precisely when the town clock 
struck nine in the morning. This was accordingly 
done, and the pigeon arrived in London, and flew 
into the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate-street, at half past 
eleven, having flown seventy-two miles in two hours 
and a half, not half the speed, it may be remarked, 
of the Cologne pigeons above recorded. 
The observations of Audubon on the passenger 
pigeon tend to confirm the view which we have 
taken. ‘“ Their great power of flight,” he says, “ en- 
ables them to survey Bi pass over an astonishing 
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