River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1919-01-09

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their comrades completely surrounded Tor lour
days and with no method of communicating Wofu
of their plight to the general in command. Inat
fourth night of the men scouting IN no MAN ,
Land stumbled a dead cOmrade on WHOSE
back was strapped q basket carrying two llttle
pigeons that during the fOur-day battle had been
safeguarded by the body of their caretaker len
DERBY the scout brought the basket and birds
back to the colonel the hill. Early the next
morning messages written, atflxed TO the
legs of the birds, which, exhausted ana DUST
sOiled but imbued with indOmitable spirit ana
pluck were liberated-wafted into the air by the
prayers and wishes of the regiment bearing with
them the only remaining hope for these thousands
of men and the happiness of other thousands IN
their families at home. Shortly afterward both
birds fluttered YEARLY into their loft back at
headquarters; and in a sortie ordered by the gen.
eral the enemy driven back and the regiment
saved
One of the officers of that regiment is in
Washington, and he has promised himself that
now the war is he will have a loft of the
best birds he get and the best care and at
tentiOn that is possible will be but slight part
of his measure of appreciation and gratitude to
the little feathered messengers to whom he and
his comrades their lives.
These little birds have been used in almost
every conceivable way to get word back to the
reserves or to headquarters when all other
means of communication failed.
Carrier pigeons not only used by the in
fantry and the navy, but used frequently by
the air service. At the Dunkirk hydrOplane sta
ton they have an envable record. There has not
been single accident to plane, nor the loss Of
a plane in combat, where word of the occurrence
was not brought back by the pigeons which
q part of the equipment of the planes. Instances
of the value of the messengers could be multi
piled without number, but it is more interesting
to recount how these birds bred, reared and
housed under conditions:
The pigeons ability to do all of these wonderful
tasks lies in its faculty of orientaton, that is, its
power to know as soon it is released in what
direction its home loft is and to fly directly to it.
The perfection to which OrentatiOn is developed
in the highly bred and trained homer recently
demonstrated at pigeon fly conducted by the
pigeon section of the signal corps, when 3100
homing pigeons were released in Washington for
a fly to New York city, 224 miles. To a single
bird, these pigeons ran out of their coops and
arose in the air with the speed of an express
train and after taking half circle to get their
bearing were off for New York Every one of
the pigeons was reported to have arrived prompt
" and the first arrival made the trip in hours
and 40 minutes. Surely it did not stop to read
many sign posts the way.
lust how the homing pigeon developed this
mower of orientation is a question, but it is
certain that it has been cultivated through CEN
turies until now it is almost uncanny. What
ynides the pigeon back to the loft where it FIRST
1took TO the air" is quality called by r,any
names and you will find that each person knows
that he has the answer to the riddle. Some call
II innate love of home; others attribute it to fac
nltv. atmospheric conditions sight, or memory.
personally cannot call it anything more or less
than instinct highly developed. We find it in
lesser degree in horses, dogs and CATS and in
o+bar birds it seems to be developed little less
markedly, but with sufficient accuracy that
thew migrate annually thousands of miles without
the aid of any other compass than their instinct.
Whom we remember the potent power of Selec-
tion and think of the years and generations of
careful breeding and selection which the homng
pigeon has undergone it is not SO wonderful that
they have dev&loped the homing instinct TO high
degree ht.Yc seen their cousins, the fan-tailed
pigeons bred 20 such a degrees OF hneness that
they weighed <.nly few ounces apiece and were