200 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



arduous competitions which annually take place among 

 first-rate birds. As soon as the fledgling is fairly strong 

 on its wings, it is taken a few miles from the cot and 

 released. It rises into the air, looks about it and starts 

 straight away for home. There is no mystery about this 

 at all ; when it has attained the height of a few yards the 

 bird can see its cot, and full of that strong love of home 

 which is so characteristic of its wild ancestors, the blue-rocks, 

 it hastens back to the society of its mates. The next day 

 the trial-distance is doubled, and the third day is still fur- 

 ther increased, until in a few weeks it will return from a 

 distance of seventy miles, which is all that a bird-of-the- 

 year is " fit " to do ; and when two years old, will return 

 from two hundred miles, longer distances being left to 

 more mature birds. But all this training must be in a 

 continuous direction ; if the first lesson was toward the 

 east, subsequent lessons must also be ; nor can the added 

 distance each time exceed a certain limit, for then, after 

 trying this way and that, and failing to recognize any 

 landmark, the bird will simply come back to where it was 

 thrown up. Moreover, it must always be clear weather. 

 Homing pigeons will make no attempt to start in a fog, or 

 if they do get away, a hundred chances to one they will be 

 lost. Nor do they travel at night, but settle down at dusk 



