THE SPEED OF THE PIGEON-POST 93 



railway-carriage windows give a rough means of com- 

 paring bird-speed. The writer has often done this, 

 and has found that a train running at thirty-five miles 

 an hour travels faster than the rook, the heron, the 

 pheasant, and all small birds commonly seen inland 

 except swallows and martins. A covey of partridges 

 flying parallel with the train sometimes exceeds the 

 speed of the engine at between thirty-five and forty 

 miles per hour. Accurate observations of the flight of 

 cormorants might be made, if anyone would take the 

 necessary trouble, when returning to roost in the cliffs. 

 They fly perfectly straight along shore in certain places 

 just before dusk every evening, and a few marks set up 

 and a measurement on the ordnance map would give 

 accurate results, especially if two persons marked the 

 flight at different angles. The writer has found the 

 speed of these heavy birds, on still evenings, to approxi- 

 mate to a mile in one minute and ten seconds. ' A 

 mile a minute ' is less rapid when the flight is watched 

 from a distance than might be imagined. It must be 

 something less than half the speed at which a swift 

 dashes past on a summer evening, though allowances 

 must be made for appearances when comparing the 

 flight of large birds with that of small ones. A bee 

 seems to fly by like a flash, yet it only makes thirty 

 miles an hour, or half the speed at which the heavy 

 cormorants fly home to bed. 



