THE TRAVELS OF BIRDS 



Pigeons usually does not care to risk losing his 

 birds by taking them so far from home that they 

 may never return. But it is also true that the 

 first homing flights of Pigeons are often over 

 routes which they have never seen before. The 

 journey may be short, but like the sea birds in the 

 fog, they would not know what direction to take 

 if something did not tell them, and this some- 

 thing is the homing instinct or sense of direction. 

 Before the discovery of wireless telegraphy, 

 Captain Reynaud of France was forming a 

 Pigeon post service for the French ArrTiy. 

 Among his experiments he released Pigeons 

 from steamers when they were out of sight of 

 land. I still have a message which he sent me 

 from the steamer on which he was returning 

 from this country to France. Surely something 

 more than sight was required to bring the bird 

 that bore this message back to its home in New 

 York City. It has been suggested that from the 

 cage in which they were confined the Pigeons 

 might see the country through which they were 

 passing. They could then, some people have 

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