The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1896-05-08
FLYING BY SIGHT.
HOW CARRIER PIGEONS FIND
THEIR WAY HOME.
Not by Instinct or Some Mysterious
Sense, But by Following
the clay of the
Land.o
PROFESSOR C. F. HODGE, of

- Clark University, at WOrces-
ter, Mass, has been expert
G menting to ascertain how car
rier pigeons find their way home, and
the result of his work is given in Pop
ular Science Monthly. 1t entirely
dissipates the popular notion that car
rier pigeons are guided by some ''di-
rection sense, or blind instinct, or,
as the French have put it, that they
follow certain electrical currents,
which their delicate senses apprehend.
The result of Professor Hodges
work is to demonstrate that carrier
pigeons are guided by sight alone. He
says that no carrier pigeon can find
his way over strange country, that he
is likely to get lost in a fog, and that
until he learns from. experience he is
often fooled by colors or objects
which appear to be familiar. Thus
with some young pigeons with which
the Professor experimental they flew
to the nearest red barn when let out
of closed cage, supposlng it to be
the red barn near the home loft, and
for time they would fly to any red
barn that came in sight.
Another curious fact was noticed
about these young pigeons. The mo-
ment they were liberated from their
home loft they flew to the top of the
nearest chimney and began to loot
about and take mental notes. Thirty
five minutes we're thus occupied in
noting every detail of their surround
ings, looking eagerly this way and
that, and covering all the points OF
the compass. Having learned the
clay of the land" they were ready to
be taken off quarter of mile or so,
when, flying up to great height,
they saw some familiar object to which
they would fly at once and quickly
find their way to the loft.
1t was noticed by the Professor,
however, that some of these pigeons
were fools and others very sagacious.
The fools got lost easily, did not pro-
coed upon any rati onal basis, and al
lowed themselves to be deceived by
trees and hills which took them in the
wrong direction. The more sagacious
pigeons where liberated in a strange
place would fly to great height in
constantly widening circle. In a very
few minutes they would sweep ter
ritory fifty miles in extent of vision.
Even when the home-loft was less than
mile away some of the carrier
pigeons wasted immense effort and
time in trying to find it.
One of them made four circles and
rose high in the air. To the south
and west were lakes and woods, with
but few farm-houses. Towards the
north was the village of South Madi
son, Wis, near which the experiments
were held. The pigeon rushed off in
the wrong direction to inspect a red
barn, which he thought looked like
that near the loft, but he came back
to the starting point, and from there
started off to the State capital. He
reached the city, but found nothing
familiar and spent some time circling
over it, having covered a distance of
ten miles in less than eight minutes.
He was liberated at o'clock and re-
turned to the loft at 5, having flown,
it was estimated, at the rate of mile
a minute.
A week later this same pigeon flew
home from the same hill in less than
minute. The first flights of the
carrier pigeons were very crooked and
tortuous, and are illustrated by the
charts published by Professor Hodge.
But after they had been once or twice
over the ground they flew almost in
straight line, and with incredible
speed. Liberated from boat on a
lake it was noticed the birds always
few to the nearest land. One Of them,
''foor' pigeon, looked over the same
ground again and again, with no ap-
parent confidence in his own ability,
and then few back to the boat in the
lake.
One of his companions, a clever
bird, kept increasing his circles over
the land until some familiar object
caught his eye, and from there he
quickly found his way home. The
former was subsequently lost when
liberated with eleven others, all of
whom found their way to the home
loft. This also goes to show that
carrier pigeons do not fly in focks
and render no assistance to each other,
each one apparently desiring to paddle
his own canoe.
The birds, it seems, can always find
their way back to the point from
which they start, and failing to learn
the way to their home will often re-
turn there. When they proceed by
making constantly widening circles,
however, there is no use of their re-
turning for fresh start. Some of the
carrier pigeons, especially the younger
ones, started off in zig-zag course
when liberated and missed familiar
objects at short distance.
The spiral, says Professor Hodge,
is the ideal way to cover every inch
of the ground. He says that carrier
pigeons do not circle about in the air
for sport or exercise, but that it is
part of their searching instinct, al
ways on the alert to see their way and
note the landscape. In searching for
lost tennis ball, he noticed that the
natural instinct of dogs and men seemed
20 be the spiral widening out from
the center, but that some boys
searched by series of straight lines.
Professor Hodge estimates that the
distance at which a prominent land
mark is visible is three miles.
The best time made in the first
flight of bird was twenty-six miles
in five hours and nine minutes. TAX
ing three miles as the limit of vision
over broken country, Professor Hodge
estimates that the least length of the
involute of circle which would bring
q bird from q distance of tuantr-Six