BIRDS, 365 



If no unfavourable circumstances occur, such as fog, mist, 

 or a strong opposing wind, the speed with which the journey 

 is accomplished is very remarkable. Of this many well- 

 authenticated instances are recorded. On one occasion a 

 Carrier-pigeon flew from Rouen to Ghent, a distance of about 

 150 miles, in an hour and a half.* On another, 23 Irish 

 miles were accomplished in eleven minutes; or, in other words, 

 at the rate of 125-J miles an hour.f 



The Turtle-dove (C.turtur) is a summer visitant, but by 

 no means widely or plentifully diffused. The Passenger- 

 pigeon (C. migratoria) is included, like other stragglers, in the 

 list of British birds. It is a native of America, and ranges 

 over the whole of the vast continent lying between the Rocky 

 Mountains and the Atlantic. To the works of Wilson, 

 Audubon, and other writers, we must refer for an account of 

 its habits. We can but notice the amazing numbers in which 

 it sometimes appears, and the quantity of food required for 

 the daily sustenance of one of these immense flocks. Esti- 

 mating its breadth at one mile, which is below the average, 

 and allowing two Pigeons to each square yard, the number in 

 one flock, according to Audubon, would be 1,115,000,000; 

 and, as every Pigeon consumes daily half a pint of grain, the 

 quantity required to feed such a flock must amount to 

 8,712,000 bushels per day.J 



Phasianidce. The Common Pheasant (Phasianus Col- 

 cliicus) represents another family. This beautiful bird has 

 been long naturalised in these countries, but came originally 

 from the banks of the Phasis, a river in Colchis, in Asia 

 Minor. The Grouse belongs to another familly (Tetraonidce) ; 

 one of these, the Red Grouse (Tetrao Scoticus), is peculiar to 

 the British Islands, being unknown in any other part of the 

 world. It inhabits wild extensive heaths, whether moor or 

 mountain, and in some districts of both Scotland and Ireland 

 is very abundant. The Black Grouse is found in both 

 England and Scotland, but not in Ireland. This bird has 

 been known to pair with the Pheasant in a wild state, the 

 hybrids thus produced exhibiting some of the characters of 



* Yarrel. 



t Thompson. 



j Audubon's calculation is founded on the supposition that the flock, 

 moving at the rate of one mile per minute, takes three hours to pass by 

 a given spot; thus forming a parallelogram of 180 miles long by 1 broad. 



VOL. II. II 



