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THE PASSENGER-PIGEON. 
from Dover at the same time as an express train, but reached London 
half an hour before "the iron horse." This would give a speed of 
seventy-five miles an hour. 
The passenger-pigeon (Edopistes migratorius), or Canadian turtle- 
dove, is altogether a larger and stronger bird. Two circumstances 
have made him famous — his remarkable migrations, and his associative 
faculty; and though in reference to both much exaggeration has been 
written, still the facts are sufficiently surprising. Audubon affirms 
that he flies at the rate of a mile a minute ; and Wilson speaks of him 
and his congeners as gathering in dense multitudes, several ranks 
deep, and so packed against one another that it is wonderful they can 
ply their wings. " To my right and left," he says on one occasion, " as 
far as my eye could reach, the column extended, eveiy where equally 
compact and equally dense." As for the passenger-pigeon's nest, we 
must not expect of so migratory a bird anything consummate in the 
way of architecture. It is formed of some dry twigs, interlaced, and 
planted in the forked branch of a tree. That is all ; but for a traveller's 
purposes that is enough. It helps to show that in building his nest, 
as in choosing his habitat, the bird is guided by the conditions of his 
daily life, to which he adapts himself with more or less intelligence. 
THE BEE-EATER. 
The Egyptian bee-eater lives in Egypt all the year round ; and, 
with glossy emerald-green plumage, curved and tapering beak, and 
long forked tail-feathers, is truly a thing of beauty. The mirror of 
the Nile reflects few fairer creatures. As he flashes in the sun, like 
some living garnet, he establishes a claim to be honoured as the hum- 
ming-bird of the Nile. On bright days he frequents the palm groves 
and cotton plantations in numerous companies. 
In general comeliness and grace he is rivalled, however, by the 
great spotted cuckoo, which never fails to captivate the stranger with 
the elegant outlines of his drooping crest and long tail, and the varied 
tinting and soft texture of his plumage. In Great Britain he is rarely, 
if ever, seen ; in Egypt he is tolerably common. A recent writer gives 
an animated account of the circumstances under which he captured a 
