St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1891-07-04
"YA .
PIGEONS ON THE WING.
Instances Apf the Extraordinary speed
They Acquire.

Ihey Acquire.
The power of pigeons on the wing i
proverbiaL All trained birds of thf
species have two qualifications in
marked degree. The first is speed, tn,
second long and sustained powers O
night. This proposition can be amply
demonstrated, and the following arr
some OF the most remarkable records
on october 9, 1850, Sir John Ross dis
patched pair of young pigeons from
Assistance Bay, a little west of Wei
;llngton Sound, and on October 10 pig
con made its appearance at the dove.
cote in Ayrshire, Scotland, whence Sir
John had the pair taken out. The
distance direct between the two places
is 1000 miles. An instance is on record
OF pigeon flying twentythree miles
IN eleven minutes, and another few
from Rouen to Ghent, $50 miles,
IN an hour and half. An in
teresting incident of fight is the case
OF pigeon which, in 1S45 fell wounded
and exhausted at Vauxhall station, then
the terminus of the Southwestern rail-
way. 1t bore message to the effect
that 1t was one of three dispatched to
the Duke of Wellington from Ichaboe
Island, 1000 miles away. The message
was Immediately sent to His Grace, and
by him acknowledged In pigeon COM
petition some years ago the winning
bird flew from Ventnor to Manchester,
2os miles, at the rate of fifty miles an
hour. AS an experiment trained
pigeon was recently dispatched from
northern newspaper office with re-
quest that it might be liberated for its
return journey at 9:45 a. m. 1t reached
home at LILO p. M, having covered in
the meantime 14S miles, flying at the
rate OF forty miles an hour. In the
north pigeons have long been used to
convey messages between country
houses and market towns, and in Rus
STA they are now being employed to
convey negatives of photographs taken
in balloons. The first experiment of
the kind was made from the cupola of
the Cathedral of Isaac, and the subject
photographed was the Winter Palace
The plates were packed in envelopes,
impenetrable to light, and then tied to
the feet of the pigeons, which safely and
quickly carried them to the station at
Volkovo. Here is another interesting
instance OF speed and staying power.
The pigeons in question flew from Bor-
deaux to Manchester, and not only beat |
all existing records, but few more than
seventy miles further than any thing
previously attempted by English flyers.
The winning bird few at the rate of |
1s879 yards minute, or over "a miles an
hour, and that for a distance of 142k
miles. The same club has flown
birds distances of 613 and 625 miles.
These latter, however, were several
days in returning, and in their case
the only wonder is that they could ac-
complish the distance at all The fol-
loving is still more interesting. as it
a race between birds and in
sects. A pigeon fancier of Hamme, in
made wager that dozen
bees liberated three miles from their
hive would reach it in better time than Z
a dozen pigeons would reach their cot
from the same distance. The competi-
tors were given wing at Rhynhern,
village nearly a league from Hamme,
and the first bee finished quarter of a
minute in advance of the first pigeon,
three other bees reached the goal be-
fore the second pigeon, the main body
of both detachments finishing almost
an instant or two later.
The bees, too, may be said to have been
in the race, having been
rolled in -four before starting for prr-
poses of Identification Maya
zine,