PACE AND. LAST 117 
established itself that a bird would rather face a 
gale than fly before it. 
Endurance. 
I have already to a great extent dealt with the 
question of endurance. It cannot be separated from 
the question of pace when one is discussing the great 
southward flight of the American Golden Plover or 
the voyage of the land birds to their winter home 
in New Zealand, or even the flights of Homing 
Pigeons. In 1892 the bird that won the great race 
of the Manchester Flying Club from Nantes kept up 
a speed of 353 miles per hour for a distance of 430 
miles. He was flying for over 12 hours, during which 
his flight muscles had no rest. I am assuming that he 
did not stop to rest. If he did stop for any length 
of time, his speed while he was on the wing must 
have been much over 35 miles. The wind was 
favourable, from the south-west, and the weather 
was fine, but this does not make the achievement a 
commonplace one. Another bird, when the Preston 
and District Homing Society had their Nantes race, 
flew home—a distance of 441 miles—at a rate of 36 
miles per hour. A man considers 30 miles in a day 
a long walk. What a horse without a rider could 
do I don’t know, but I feel sure it would be some- 
thing far short of 400 miles. 
In April, 1909, when I was on my way to Egypt, 
some Herons which were making their spring-migra- 
tion flight over the Mediterranean showed astonishing 
endurance. When they first appeared—a flock of 
rather over 20—at 5.30 in the afternoon, they must 
already have flown at least 300 miles from the coast 
