66 Poachers and Poaching. 



cover one thousand six hundred miles in twenty- 

 four hours. This, however, is marvellous, when 

 it is seen that, flying at the rate of nearly seventy 

 miles an hour, it takes the bird two days and 

 nights to cross. What must be the nature of the 

 mechanism that can stand such a strain as this ? 

 This pigeon is now recognised as a British bird'. 

 Several examples have occurred, and whilst some 

 of these were probably " escapes," others doubt- 

 less were wild birds. These had perfect plumage, 

 were taken in an exhausted condition, and their 

 crops showed only the slightest traces of food. 

 As is well known, the passenger pigeon is a bird 

 of immense powers of flight, and in its over- 

 land journeys often flies at the rate of a mile a 

 minute. Wild birds, however, can only come 

 from America ; and this opens up the interesting 

 question as to the possibility of birds crossing the 

 Atlantic without once resting. Naturalists of 

 the present day say that this feat is not only 

 probable, but that it is accomplished by several 

 birds. Mr. Darwin somewhere asserts that one 

 or two of them are annually blown across the 

 ocean ; and it is certain that half-a-dozen species 

 have occurred upon the west coasts of England 

 and Ireland, which are found nowhere but in 

 North America. Mr. Howard Saunders states 

 that passenger pigeons are often captured in the 

 State of New York with their crops still filled 

 with the undigested grains of rice that must have 



