VISION. 229 



ing business to transact at Paris, laid a wager of 

 fifty 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 is a 

 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 and pass over an astonishing 



