BRITISH WILD PIGEONS 253 



pigeon, and, upon what is generally considered 

 sufficient evidence, it is now recognised as a British 

 bird. Several examples have occurred, and whilst 

 some of these were probably " escapes," others 

 doubtless 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 power of flight, and in its overland 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 whole Atlantic 

 without resting. Naturalists of the present day say 

 that this feat is not only probable, but that it is 

 actually accomplished by several wild 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 undigested grains of rice that must 

 have been taken in the distant fields of Georgia 

 and South Carolina; apparently proving that they 

 had passed over the intervening space within a few 

 hours. 



