Couriers of the Air. 65 



further than anything previously attempted by 

 English flyers. The winning bird flew at the 

 rate of eighteen hundred and seventy-nine yards 

 a minute, or over sixty-four miles an hour, and 

 that for a distance of one hundred and forty-two 

 and a half miles. The same club has flown birds 

 distances of six hundred and thirteen, and six 

 hundred and twenty-five miles. These latter, 

 however, were several days in returning, and in 

 their case the only wonder is that they could 

 accomplish the distance at all. The following 

 is still more interesting, as it entailed a race 

 between birds and insects. A pigeon-fancier of 

 Hamme, in Westphalia, made a wager that a 

 dozen bees liberated three miles from their hive 

 would reach it in better time than a dozen pigeons 

 would reach their cot from the same distance. 

 The competitors were given wing at Rhynhern, 

 a village nearly a league from Hamme, and the 

 first bee finished a quarter of a minute in advance 

 of the first pigeon, three other bees reached the 

 goal before the second pigeon, the main body of 

 both detachments finishing almost simultaneously 

 an instant or two later. The bees, too, may be 

 said to have been handicapped in the race, 

 having been rolled in flour before starting for 

 purposes of identification. 



The American passenger pigeon compasses 

 the whole Atlantic ocean. The speed of its 

 flight is approximately known ; it is able to 



