76 PIGEONS AND THE PIGEON FANCY ; 



wonderful feats may be altogether accounted for by their 

 acute eyesight, good memory, and great power of endu- 

 rance and speed. Cases have been cited which were thought 

 to prove that they possess some mysterious power of di- 

 vining the way home, but the weight of the evidence is 

 decidedly against this notion. Fog and darkness invariably 

 interfere with their return, and even a light fall of snow, 

 which changes the appearance of the landmarks, has 

 thwarted them. Journeys of three or four miles have been 

 made on moonlight nights ; but the offer made by Mr. Teget- 

 meier of 10 for any pair of pigeons which would fly 

 twenty-five miles on a dark night (although thousands 

 will fly two hundred and fifty miles in a day) was not 

 met. The same gentleman took a pigeon, which had often 

 flown fifty miles, a distance of five miles in a fog, and the 

 bird very wisely remained upon a housetop until the fog 

 cleared away. 



The mystery of this homing power is lessened in some 

 degree, when it is considered that a pigeon's power of 

 vision is probably much greater than that of man, and 

 that Mr. Glaisher, from a balloon one-half mile high over 

 London, could see the River Thames all the way from 

 Richmond to the Nore, and when a mile high, the cliffs 

 at Dover seventy miles away. There can be little doubt 

 that the very best-bred pigeon would certainly be lost if 

 taken one hundred miles away for its first flight. Some 

 birds which were twenty hours upon a journey of eighty- 

 three miles flew over the same ground the second time in 

 two. Even old ones, which have flown in races the 

 previous season hundreds of miles in length, are never 

 sent upon the longest journeys without being, in some 

 degree, re-trained that year to refresh their memory. 



Dragoons, Tumblers, Owls, and other varieties, have 



