CHAPTER XVII 



ANIMAL INSTINCT DISCREDITED 



In these days it is the fashion to discredit 

 animal instinct. With regard to " homing " 

 pigeons, another correspondent to the Daily 

 Mail, writes : 



" They travel by sight and memory, and 

 not by instinct. The fastest bird in the race 

 covered 500 miles at the rate of 44 miles an 

 hour. Whilst over land birds learn to mark 

 the valleys and hills. Learning to fly over 

 the Channel is a more difficult matter ; there 

 is nothing to guide the birds, and hundreds 

 are lost through not having pluck to make 

 the crossing." 



If this be so, and birds have no instinctive 

 sense of direction, how is it that any single 

 one succeeds in making the passage? Yet 

 hundreds do so, including so-called untrained 

 birds. 



Pigeon-racing being a national sport attracts 

 a good deal of attention, and in this way the 



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