CHAPTER XVI 



THE SENSE OF DIRECTION 



WHEN the pageant of the year is almost over, and 

 autumn decks the leaves in their brightest colours to 

 say farewell, we watch the twittering swallows gather 

 in companies on our roofs, ere they pass in the night 

 and are no more seen. And year after year, when 

 the cold and darkness of winter are past and the 

 hum of insects is heard again in the air, the warmth- 

 loving birds come once more back to nest under 

 the very eaves which gave them welcome before. 



But though years of patient inquiry have taught 

 where they go when they leave us, and even the routes 

 they travel by are known, we know not what power 

 impels them unerringly forward, straight to the far- 

 distant point they have chosen as their winter home. 



So far as we can see, they must possess a sense of 

 direction, shared by all migratory birds, and in a lesser 

 degree by some other animals and certain races of 

 men. The possession of such a sense would account 

 equally well for the long flights of homing pigeons, 

 and to many people seems the only possible explana- 

 tion of their performances. But one of the highest 

 practical authorities on the subject has always em- 

 phasised the rational side of the homing pigeons' 

 flight, and maintaining that they require training over 



