Birds as Messengers 



bird his son and crew were saved. An R.A.F. 

 seaplane, patrolling over the North Sea, made 

 a forced descent and was in danger of being 

 dashed to pieces by the heavy sea. The 

 airmen released a PIGEON with a message 

 asking for immediate help, and in twenty- 

 two minutes the bird reached its loft twenty- 

 two miles distant. Help was at once sent, 

 and the airmen were found clinging to the 

 wreckage of the machine, which was rapidly 

 breaking up (Daily Mail, 30 . ix . 18). A touch- 

 ing story is told by a Canadian, Flight-Com- 

 mander R. Leckie, D.S.O., in a letter home, 

 published in an American newspaper. After 

 an engagement with hostile aircraft over the 

 North Sea he came down, his seaplane riddled 

 with shrapnel, over fifty miles from land, and 

 then had to act as rescuer and host to the 

 crew of an aeroplane, wrecked by engine 

 failure. Six men were thus adrift in a 

 doomed machine, with no food and little 

 water. The commander had four pigeons : 

 one was released at once, a second on the 

 next day, a third on the third day. All 

 failed to reach home, perishing over the 



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