BIBDS. 349 



If no unfavourable circumstances occur, such as fog, mist, 

 or a strong opposing wind, the speed with which the journey 

 is accomphshed is very remarkable. Of this many well-authen- 

 ticated instances are recorded. On one occa.sion a Carrier- 

 pigeon flew from Rouen to Ghent, a distance of about 150 

 miles, in an hour and a half.* On another, 23 Irish miles 

 were accomplished in eleven minutes ; or, in other words, at 

 the rate of 125J- miles an hour.f 



The Turtle-dove (C. turtur) is a summer visitant, but by no 

 means widely or plentifully diffused. The Passenger-pigeon 

 (C. migratoria) is included, like other stragglers, in the list of 

 British birds. It is a native of America, and ranges over the 

 whole of the vast continent lying between the llocky Moun- 

 tains and the Atlantic. To the works of Wilson, Audubon, 

 and other writers, we must refer for an account of its habits. 

 We can but notice the amazing numbers in which it sometimes 

 appears, and the quantity of food required for the daily sus- 

 tenance of one of these immense flocks. Estimating its 

 breadth at one mile, which is below the average, and allowing 

 two Pigeons to each square yard, the number in one flock, 

 according to Audubon, would be 1,115,000,000 ; and, as every 

 Pigeon consumes daily half a pint of grain, the quantity re- 

 quired to feed such a flock must amount to 8,712,000 bushels 

 per day. J 



PhusianidcE. — -The common Pheasant (Pliasianus Colchicus) 

 represents another family. This beautiful bird has been long 

 naturalized in these countries, but came originally from the 

 banks of the Phasis, a river in Colchis, in Asia Minor. Its 

 splendid congener the Golden Pheasant, is represented in Fig. 

 274. The Grouse belongs to another family {Tetraonidce) ; one of 

 these, the Red Grouse (Tetrao Scoticus), is peculiar to the British 

 Islands, being unknown in any other part of the world. It 

 inhabits wild extensive heaths, whether moor or mountain, and 

 in some districts of both Scotland and Ireland is very abundant. 

 The Black Grouse is found in both England and Scotland, but 

 not in Ireland. This bird has been known to pair with the 

 Pheasant in a wild state, the hybrids thus produced exhibiting 

 fiome of the characters of both species. The White Grouse, 



• Yarrell. t Thompson. 



X Audubon's calculation is founded on the supposition that the flock, 

 moving at the rate of one mile per minute, takes three hours to pass by a 

 given spot ; thus forming a parallelogram of 1 «0 miles long, by 1 broad. 



