OF WILD ANIMALS 175 



a transfer to Wilmington, or Richmond, via his own Atlantic 

 coast line. 



The wonderful migratory instincts of birds have been devel- 

 oped and intensified through countless generations by the imper- 

 ative need for instinctive guidance, and the comparatively small 

 temptation to inductive reasoning based on known facts. 

 Evidently the bird is emboldened to migrate by the comfortable 

 belief that somewhere the world contains food and warmth 

 to its liking, and that if it flies fast enough and far enough 

 it will find it. 



As a weather prophet, the prescience of the bird is strictly 

 limited. The warm spells of late February deceive the birds 

 just as they do the flowers of the peach tree and thfe apple. 

 Often the bluebirds and robins migrate northward too early, 

 encounter blizzards, and perish in large numbers from snow, 

 sleet, cold and hunger. 



The Homing Sense of Birds. We can go no farther 

 than to say that while the homing instinct of certain species 

 of birds is quite well known, the mental process by which it 

 functions is practically unknown. The direction instinct of 

 the homing pigeon is marvelous, but we know that that instinct 

 does not leap full-fledged from the nest. The homer needs 

 assistance and training. When it is about three months old, 

 it is taken in a basket to a point a mile distant from its home and 

 liberated. If it makes good in returning to the home loft, 

 the distances are increased by easy stages — two, three, five, 

 ten, twenty, thirty, fifty and seventy-five miles usually being 

 flown before the bird is sent as far as 100 miles. The official 

 long-distance record for a homing pigeon is 1689.44 miles, held 

 by an American bird. 



The homing instinct, or sense, is present in some mammals, 

 but it is by no means so phenomenal as in some species of birds. 

 In mammals it is individual rather than species-wide. Indi- 

 vidual horses, dogs and cats have done wonderful things under 

 the propulsion of the homing instinct, but that instinct is by 



