THE COLUMBINE, OR PIGEON GROUP, 141 



the same. Nq-w from any part of the circle, 

 let it perceive an object, -which while per- 

 forming its circles at home, has caught its eye, 

 it has at once a clue to the right direction ; 

 that object attained, a succession of others 

 familiar to it are rapidly passed, till its home 

 greets its keen and long-surveying powers of 

 vision . 



This idea struck us forcibly when viewing 

 the prospect from Mont Cassel, near St. Omer. 

 Though this conical mount, once a Roman 

 military occupation, is of no very great eleva- 

 tion, we saw an amphitheatre around us of 

 from fifty to sixty miles in nearly every direc- 

 tion, and across the Manche the white cliffs of 

 the Kentish coast. If a long-sighted pigeon 

 had soared above us, say at the elevation of 

 one mile (its home being in London) we feel 

 assured that its old familiar land-marks would 

 have been at once discerned by it, and have 

 been guide-posts, to direct it in its homeward 

 flight. 



Audubon speaking of the passenger pigeon 

 of North America, says that specimens have 

 been killed in the neighbourhood of New York, 

 with their crops full of rice, which must have 

 been collected in the fields of Georgia and 



