THE SENSE OF DIRECTION 117 



walls, and beyond those a farm homestead, a small 

 wood, two or three fields, and a high-road with 

 banks and hedges on each side of it. By the evening 

 most of the ducklings were back in the rearing field, 

 too exhausted to quack, and others on their way ; but 

 none of them returned along the road they had gone 

 by, and as far as obstacles would allow, they took a 

 bee-line straight for their destination. 



In the second class of instances experience plays a 

 large part ; but an original faculty prior to experience 

 is conceded by the most competent observers. In 

 this group are comprised all the feats of the domesti- 

 cated homing pigeons, of whose original and surviving 

 faculty of return, unaided by experience, the follow- 

 ing two examples, given by Mr. James Huie of 

 Glasgow, in a paper on the Antwerp carrier-pigeon 

 which appeared in the Journal of Horticulture, may be 

 quoted. Some Antwerp homing pigeons, brought 

 from the Continent, were kept by Mr. Huie in 

 Glasgow. After three years some young birds were 

 sent from Glasgow, vid Manchester, to Ledbury in 

 Herefordshire. At Ledbury these pigeons were kept 

 confined until they were sitting on a second brood 

 of eggs. Then they were liberated, and were found 

 back at their home in Glasgow two days later. They 

 had never been trained, and their experience of the 

 journey was limited to what they could ascertain 

 from inside their hamper. In the Fanciers' Chronicle 

 of August 20, 1880, a still more striking instance 

 of a long return-flight of an untrained pigeon was 

 recorded by Mr. J. P. Taylor of Moss Croft, 

 Gateshead-on-Tyne. He bought some homing 



