Birds as Messengers 
bird his son and crew were saved. An R.A.F. 
seaplane, patrolling over the North Sea, made 
a forced descent and was in danger of being 
dashed to pieces by the heavy sea. The 
airmen released a PIGEON with a message 
asking for immediate help, and in twenty- 
two minutes the bird reached its loft twenty- 
two miles distant. Help was at once sent, 
and the airmen were found clinging to the 
wreckage of the machine, which was rapidly 
breaking up (Daily Mail, 30.ix.18). Atouch- 
ing story is told by a Canadian, Flight-Com- 
mander R. Leckie, D.S.O., in a letter home, 
published in an American newspaper. After 
an engagement with hostile aircraft over the 
North Sea he came down, his seaplane riddled 
with shrapnel, over fifty miles from land, and 
then had to act as rescuer and host to the 
crew of an aeroplane, wrecked by engine 
failure. Six men were thus adrift in a 
doomed machine, with no food and little 
water. The commander had four pigeons: 
one was released at once, a second on the 
next day, a third on the third day. All 
failed to reach home, perishing over the 
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