90 THE SPEED OF THE PIGEON-POST 



The distance between the two points is 250 miles. 

 Some of the so-called tables of birds' speed must have 

 been drawn up on pure conjecture. Thus, according to 

 one authority, the quail flies at 17 metres per second, 

 the pigeon at 27 metres, the falcon at 28 metres 

 (what falcon?), the swallow at 67 metres, and the 

 martin at 88 metres, or about 95 yards per second. 

 Such comparisons are useless without stating what kind 

 of flight is meant. The only flight which is open to 

 comparison in the sense desired, or rather which can 

 be compared with the means at our disposal, is the 

 sustained flight of birds from point to point. Not, 

 for example, the downward rush of a falcon after prey, 

 or the dash of a partridge into cover. But there are 

 cases in which even these can be compared, as when a 

 bird of prey pursues another bird. In this connection 

 this table of speeds is ridiculously inaccurate ; the 

 writer has seen a small falcon, the hobby, pursue and 

 catch a swallow on the wing, though the speed of the 

 latter is set down as four times greater than that of the 

 falcon. Audubon's notes are more interesting, and 

 probably nearer the truth. He found in the crops of 

 pigeons which he shot some rice, which they could not 

 have gathered nearer than Carolina, about 350 miles 

 from the place where they were shot. From the state 

 of digestion in which he found the rice, he concluded 

 that it had been six hours in the birds' crops, and that 



