494 THE LAWS OF ORIENTATION AMONG ANIMALS. 



ever, hesitate to set out on their journey, guided only by the organ of 

 distant orientation. The sense of direction, a subjective organ, gave 

 them the direction to be followed, pointed out the reverse of the path 

 of the preceding season. Sight, an objective organ, would have put 

 them on guard against obstacles; in the present instance it was of no 

 use to them. This is why the birds on the church and on the roofs took 

 up their way through the air without difficulty, while their companions, 

 lost in a labyrinth of trees, walls, and houses, did not succeed in freeing 

 themselves from these obstacles. 



VI. 



We have shown that an animal is restricted to a domain where he 

 finds everything that is demanded for the preservation of himself and 

 of his species. This domain, more or less extensive for the wild beast, 

 is restricted for the pigeon, for example, to the four walls of his cote. 

 In truth does he not find there, to use the apt expression of the fabulist, 

 "good food, a good bed, and everything else?" On the other hand, if 

 it is true that a knowledge of his locality is not absolutely indispensable 

 to insure his return home, and the sense of distant orientation suffices to 

 guide the animal, it will without doubt be admitted that it is possible 

 to make a pigeon house movable and to teach its inhabitants to lead a 

 wandering life. 



Let us .suppose that a cote is transported into entirely new surround- 

 ings without the least disturbance being made in the life of its inhabi- 

 tants. They, set at liberty on their arrival, will perhaps wander away, 

 but the law of retracement will insure their return. We have remarked 

 above that a lost pigeon knows how to return to the point of his release 

 which he has hardly noticed in the morning and to which apparently 

 no pleasant memory, no interest, attracts him. For still greater reason 

 the dweller in a movable pigeon house would attempt to retrace his 

 journey. If he is taken to some distance and then released, he will go 

 to find his home just where he left it. The movable pigeon house which 

 comes into a new region will therefore render, to some extent, almost 

 immediate service in the locality. 



This new way of using the carrier pigeon, impracticable according to 

 the ideas which have hitherto been held with respect to orientation, is 

 only the strict application of our theory. 



Interesting experiments have proved conclusively that faithfulness 

 to his native cote can be reconciled with wandering life. A certain 

 number of pigeons were born and raised in a wagon used as a pigeon 

 house. They had no other home than this moving house. It was of 

 little consequence to one of these pigeons whether its house stopped 

 to-day in the bottom of a valley, to-morrow sought shelter in a forest, or 

 stopped for a little while in the maze of houses forming a large city. 

 If it were taken away from its cote to be released, it would not be 

 guided on its return by the necessarily slight knowledge of the region 



