20 
EIGHTH REPORT. 
different character, inferences, assumptions, and mere guesses in some 
cases, as to the distances covered by migrating birds, the height at 
which they fly and the velocity of their flight. He makes the astounding 
assertion that the Red-spotted Bluethroat, a little bird which breeds 
mainly in Northern Europe and winters in Africa, migrates from its 
winter quarters in upper Egypt to its summer home in Scandinavia, in 
a single night and f>y one continuous flight, without rest • some indi¬ 
viduals flying at least 1,600 miles in nine hours, or an average speed 
of 180 miles an hour, but some of them even continuing this flight to a 
distance of 2,400 miles, at a rate of 240 miles an hour! This stupendous 
claim appears to be based on the alleged fact that this species has not 
been recorded anywhere in numbers in spring between Egypt and Helig¬ 
oland ! 
Similarly Gatke states positively that the American Golden Plover 
migrates in autumn from Labrador to Brazil, over the Atlantic in one 
uninterrupted flight of 3,000 miles! He further assumes (without ex¬ 
planation) that fifteen hours is the longest time any bird could remain 
on the wing without food, and hence that the above flight of 3,000 
miles is made in fifteen hours, at an average speed of “212 geographical 
miles an hour”! He does not explain exactly why this speed is 212 
miles instead of precisely 200 miles per hour, as we should figure it, but 
we need not quibble about a paltry dozen miles in the case of birds 
moving with such meteoric swiftness. Dr. J. A. Allen, in his kindly 
and impartial review of this book, says in part: “With all its imper¬ 
fection it is a book of great interest and value. . . It is also 
a book that is likely to do much harm, for it is the sensational and 
inaccurate parts especially that find their way into the current litera¬ 
ture of the day, and particularly into magazines and books devoted to 
the popularization of Natural History.”* The truth of this statement 
has been fully shown during the ten years which have passed, for Gatke’s 
mis-statements on bird migration have been quoted, requoted, distorted 
and enlarged upon until it can no longer be hoped that the mischief 
may ever be undone. 
After careful search I have been unable to find a single instance in 
which the speed of any bird has been shown by actual measurement to 
reach even 100 miles an hour. There are plenty of guesses, a few bold 
but unsupported assertions, and a number of more or less probable esti¬ 
mates. 
The figures furnished by pigeon fanciers give us some idea of the pos¬ 
sibilities of the homing pigeon, so often miscalled the “carrier pigeon.” 
These records of course give only the average speeds, but these are cer¬ 
tainly suggestive. The greatest velocity of which I find mention is 
eighty miles an hour, at which rate a homing pigeon is said to have 
covered 114 miles in 1892. I am unable, however, to verify this state¬ 
ment.! Another, and more likely record, is seventy-one miles an hour 
for a distance of eighty-two miles, while the average velocities of the 
winners in a large number of contests do not exceed forty miles an hour. 
In 1883 the best time made in eighteen races was 208 miles at the rate 
of fifty-five miles per hour. Over longer distances the velocity is very 
* Auk XIII, 153. 
t Headley, Structure and Life of Birds, p. 268. 
