THE METHOD OF HOMING PIGEONS. 763 



This arrangement was accidental at the time, but served very 

 well a subsequent purpose. Five of the birds were " youngsters/' 

 and had never been liberated anywhere. On January 30 (1892), 

 six months after their arrival, I let out these young birds one at 

 a time, and with my wife to assist, and with spyglass, watch, and 

 note-book at hand, we studied every act of each of the birds as 

 long as we could keep them in sight. Since they all adopted pre- 

 cisely the same method of locating their loft, a description of one 

 case will suffice. 



A black Antwerp, let out at 4 p. M., flew to the ridge of a house 

 eighty yards to the northwest, and sat for fifteen minutes, turn- 

 ing first this way, then that ; looking eagerly the whole time ; 

 neck stretched out and head not still for a moment. This pigeon 

 happened to alight on the north side of a chimney which came 

 up through the ridge of the house. Its position was so close to 

 the chimney that with stretching its neck as far as possible in both 

 directions a considerable sector of the landscape must have been 

 hidden from view. A few minutes after it alighted I recorded 

 the remark, " If it is really in earnest about seeing everything in 

 the neighborhood, it ought to go around to the other side of that 

 chimney." Its first move, after fifteen minutes of looking, was a 

 simple flit around the chimney. Here it stood for five minutes 

 longer, looking attentively the whole time. It then flew a hundred 

 yards south to the peak of a higher house, where six minutes more 

 were given to observation from this new position. It next flew 

 to a small, low house a hundred yards north. Here it remained 

 scarcely a minute, whence it flew a hundred yards southeast to 

 the peak of the highest house in the vicinity, where eight min- 

 utes more were devoted to observation. It now struck out to the 

 southwest over a hill and grove and was lost to view until ten 

 minutes past five, when it alighted on the loft. This flight may 

 have been for the purpose of exploration and location, it probably 

 was, in part at least ; but leaving that out of the account, the 

 bird spent thirty-five minutes doing nothing but look at its sur- 

 roundings. The others consumed about the same time in the 

 same way. In this we find the power to return laid in the pains- 

 taking visual localization of the home spot. One of the old birds, 

 which escaped by accident, acted in a very different manner. 

 After a few rapid circles, he flew straight for Madison and was 

 not seen for three days ; when, failing to find his old home in 

 Worcester, he returned to the loft. 



The next experiments were directed to determining the course 

 taken by a pigeon in his return flight. The method employed is 

 essentially the same as that used by Sir John Lubbock with the 

 ants. The pigeons were taken to a convenient distance and liber- 

 ated, and tracings of their flight were dotted off upon a chart of 



