WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



now and then do miss their bearings, get "turned 

 around " and wholly lost, is true, and is a fact to 

 be remembered in this discussion. 



In the case of the birds, observation by sight 

 is sufficient. They rise to a height whence they 

 can detect a landmark, and, flying thither, catch 

 sight of another. The experience of pigeon-trainers 

 shows this satisfactorily, and that of the falconers 

 supports it. The far-reaching eyesight of birds is 

 well known. Kill a goat on the Andes, and in 

 half an hour flocks of condors will be disputing 

 over the remains, though when the shot was fired 

 not a single sable wing blotted the vast blue arch. 

 The same is true of the vultures of the Hima- 

 layas and elsewhere. Gulls drop unerringly upon 

 a morsel of food in the surf, and hawks pounce 

 from enormous heights upon insignificant mice 

 crouching in fancied security among the meadow 

 stubble, while an arctic owl will perceive a hare 

 upon the snow (scarcely more white than himself) 

 three times as far as the keenest-eyed Chippewa 

 who ever trapped along Hudson Bay. The eye- 

 sight, then, of pigeons and falcons is amply power- 

 ful to show them the way in a country they have 

 seen before, even though the points they are ac- 

 quainted with be a hundred miles apart. 



237 



