64 Poachers and Poaching. 



bore a message to the effect that it was one of 

 three despatched to the Duke of Wellington 

 from Ichaboe Island, two thousand miles away- 

 The message was immediately sent on to his 

 Grace, and by him acknowledged. In a pigeon 

 competition some years ago, the winning bird 

 flew from Ventnor to Manchester, two hundred 

 and eight miles, at the rate of fifty-five miles an 

 hour. As an experiment a trained pigeon was 

 recently dispatched from a northern newspaper 

 office with a request that it might be liberated 

 for its return journey at 9.45 a.m. It reached 

 home at i.io p.m. having covered in the mean- 

 time one hundred and forty miles, flying at the 

 rate of forty miles an hour. In the north pigeons 

 have long been used to convey messages between 

 country houses and market towns ; and in Russia 

 they are now being employed to convey negatives 

 of photographs taken in balloons. The first 

 experiment of the kind was made from the 

 cupola of the Cathedral of Isaac, and the subject 

 photographed was the Winter Palace. The 

 plates were packed in envelopes impenetrable 

 to light, and then tied to the feet of the pigeons, 

 which safely and quickly carried them to the 

 station at Volkovo. Here is another interesting 

 instance of speed and staying power. The 

 pigeons in this case flew from Bordeaux to 

 Manchester, and not only beat all existing 

 records, but flew more than seventy miles 



