1 8 6 Carrier-pigeon Ostrich. 



42. Still more astonishing is the wonderful 

 power possessed by some birds of finding their 

 way through the pathless air, with no apparent 

 means of guiding their course. This has been 

 turned to account by man in the case of the 

 CARRIER-PIGEONS, which are used in carrying let- 

 ters to distant places. 



43. When Paris was besieged by the Germans in 1870, 

 a great many letters were carried to and fro by these birds. 



44. Their general rate of flight does not usually exceed 

 thirty miles per hour. 



45. Some carrier-pigeons were let loose at Scranton, in 

 Pennsylvania, in 1878, and they alighted on the coop of 

 their owner in the city of New York, after flying a dis- 

 tance of one hundred and six miles, in about three hours. 



46. PIGEON-HAWKS must, of course, fly faster 

 than pigeons so as to catch them, and they are 

 sometimes trained for that purpose, so that the 

 letters carried by the carrier-pigeons may come 

 into the possession of those for whom they 

 were not intended. ^_- 



47. Some birds, on the other 

 hand, cannot fly at all. In this case 

 their bones are as solid as ours. One 

 of these, the OSTRICH, is the tallest 

 of living birds, being sometimes 

 eight to ten feet high, and weigh- 

 ing from fifty to one hundred pounds, ostriches. 



48. They furnish us with very beautiful feath- 

 ers. These are so valuable that men have 



