HOMING BIEDS. 93 



certainty with which these birds passed over England is a convincing proof of the 

 fallacy of the assertion made by the English fanciers that the inferior powers of 

 the English horning birds are due to the climate or weather of this country. The 

 true explanation is evidently that they are inferior either in intelligence or power 

 of flight, or in both, or that their training is not properly conducted. 



That shrewd practical naturalist, the late Mr. Wheelwright, better known by 

 his nom de plume of " The Old Bushman," writing on the subject, states : — 



" I may first remark that my opinion is that this homing faculty in the pigeon 



is totally distinct from, and clearly conducted upon different principles from those 



which guide the swallow, the stork, and our other migratory birds over trackless 



plains and across wide seas, even on the darkest nights, to their breeding homes of 



the preceding year. This is clearly instinctive, and their flight is guided by an 



invisible hand and an intuitive knowledge for which it will ever baffle man's 



ingenuity to account. The swallow requires no previous training for its journey 



from the south of Europe to Lapland ■ the homeward flight of the pigeon from 



any distance is learned by education, and I fancy that no education or training 



would ever enable the best Antwerp that was ever bred to accomplish the journey 



which the stork or even the little swallow makes every spring and autumn without 



any human assistance. I am fully of opinion that no pair of pigeons bred in an 



aviary, and never let out of that aviary till they were strong on the wing, and then 



carried a hundred miles away and tossed, would ever find their way home. Still, 



I do not think that this homing faculty is altogether perceptive, although I fully 



agree with all Sir. Tegetmeier says about the acute vision of birds. He 



very properly observes that long instinctive flights are quite unknown to the 



fanciers who fly matches. I well recollect, in my day — and I suppose the custom 



is not much altered — that when we began to train our young birds we never tossed 



one until it had been out some little time with the flight, and had become well 



accustomed to the sight of adjacent objects. I rarely tossed the young bird for the 



first half-dozen times at a greater distance than one or two miles from home ; and 



although I did not always use the same place, I always chose an elevated situation 



for the ' chuck.' I then used to go as far as four or six miles, quickly increasing 



the distance ; and when the bird could come, under favourable circumstances, forty 



to fifty miles within the two hours, I considered its education complete for any 



length that I ever used to fly my birds. But of course, if I changed the bird's 



route, I gave it three or four flights in the direction from which it was to come, 



before I sent it down for its last flight. This used to be my method ; but I may 



add that I never had a bird come home more than seventy miles to my loft. 



"All this, I think, is conclusive evidence that the flying pigeon trusts mainly on 

 its power of vision to carry it home ; and as I can well believe that for sixty or 

 perhaps even one hundred miles a pigeon high in air can discern some familiar 

 distant object for which it at once makes, there is little wonder that at that 

 distance the well-trained bird comes home. But birds are frequently flown at a 

 greater distance. Take, for instance, the flight from London to Antwerp — I believe 



