62 Poachers and Poaching. 



immense speed in their rushes, and there is a 

 well-authenticated instance of one having flown 

 twenty miles in thirteen minutes. The probable 

 speed of the swallow, flying straight and swift, is 

 about one hundred and twenty miles an hour ; 

 its ordinary speed ninety miles. The swift 

 attains to two hundred miles, and seems quite 

 tireless on the wing. If swifts can be inspired 

 with a sense of discipline ; if French wars can 

 invariably be arranged for the summer months ; 

 and if some arrangement can be made with the 

 insect hosts to keep the upper air then some- 

 thing may come of the Lille experiments. If 

 these things cannot be, the French sharpshooter 

 will never be asked to try flying shots at swifts 

 rushing through the air at the rate of two 

 hundred miles an hour. If the Russians are 

 training falcons to catch pigeons, the Germans 

 must train raptors to catch swallows. Here is 

 a fact which proves the possibility. The hobby 

 falcon, a summer migrant to Britain, hawks for 

 dragon-flies among the swiftest of insects- 

 which it seizes with its foot and devours in mid- 

 air. It cuts down swifts, larks, pigeons, and, 

 where they are found, bee-birds all remarkable 

 for their great powers of flight. By way of 

 testing the speed of flight in birds of the swallow 

 kind, Spallanzani captured and marked a sand- 

 martin or bank-swallow the feeblest of its genus 

 on her nest at Pavia and set her free at Milan, 



