98 THE IMPORTANCE OF BIRD LIFE 



and in 1879, only four years after the introduction 

 of the first flying strains, the initial 500-mile 

 course was flown in this country, from Dayton, 

 Ohio, to Philadelphia. Seven long flights were 

 made the same year, and with each successive 

 year the number increased. 



It had always been the ambition of breeders 

 to produce birds capable of covering the 500-mile 

 distance in a single non-stop flight of one day. 

 Hitherto the course had consumed two or several 

 days, a flying day being measured from an hour 

 before sunrise to an hour after sundown. At last, 

 in 1885, the breeders reached the goal of their de- 

 sires. "Ned Damon, " a pigeon owned in Brook- 

 lyn, flew from Abingdon, Virginia, 508 miles in 

 fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes at an aver- 

 age speed of 1033.62 yards a minute. From that 

 time to the present many birds have covered the 

 distance in non-stop flight, and in 1898 a pigeon 

 from Buffalo attained the remarkable speed of 

 1608.4 yards for the distance not far from a 

 mile a minute ! In the same year four birds flew 

 seven hundred miles in a single day at a speed of 

 1546.97 yards a minute! Thus far the 1000-mile 

 course has never been covered in a single flight, 

 although "Bullet," who holds the world's record, 

 accomplished it in one day and eleven hours, 

 daylight flying. 1 The greatest distance traversed 



i Homing pigeons fly only in daylight and roost at night 

 wherever they happen to find themselves. 



