The Orientation of Birds 105 example, to struggle against a violent wind. It is, then, very natural that, endowed with different degrees of ability, our Pigeons leaving together in perfect unison, should have, little by little, become separated from each other on the route. A Pigeon from Mons, finding himself in the midst of a band of companions flying toward Charleroi, followed them as far as their destination. Then seeing each one of them disperse, in order to regain his own home, he remained alone, lost on the roofs of an unknown city. Now, Mons is not far from Charleroi, and it would be sufficient for our traveler to raise himself in the air to see, perhaps, his natal roof. He does not do so ; having in the course of his preceding journeys contracted the habit of using only the sixth sense for distant orientation, he does not dream for an instant of util- izing his sight. Resuming in an inverse sense the road followed to come to Charleroi, he arrives at Orleans at the point where he had been liberated that very morning. Tired with the long trip accom- plished during the day, he rests there one night. The next day he takes his bearings and finds again the 'reverse scent' of the road practiced two days before in the railway train, and reaches Mons. The thirty-two Pigeons which reappeared at Orleans the evening of the release, only to disappear the next day, very likel}' followed the same rule of conduct. The example we have just cited is assuredly interesting. We have based our statements on real occurrences, then when facts failed on sim- ple conjecture, to explain the comings and goings of the Pigeons. We have consequently in our deductions, if not certainty, at least a great probability, which, however, does not quite satisfy us. We think, there- fore, we ought to present a few cases more conclusive than the first. A Pigeon belonging to a colombophile of Grand-Couronne alighted in the garden belonging to M. le G6n6ral M , at Evreux. We were to go that same day to Rouen. We carry away the lost Pigeon and set him at liberty in the station of Grand-Couronne near his Pigeon cote. The Pigeon takes his bearings and returns to Evreux, at M. le Gdn^ral M . Caught again, he is this time expressed in a postal package to his owner. Allowed to go free in the cote, he no longer thinks of returning to Evreux. The Pigeon stopping to eat and rest at M. le G^n^ral M 's did not consider for one instant that unknown house as a new home: it represented to him a point of journey followed before and, conse- quently, must be a point of departure for future investigation. After a few hours of rest he will set out again from there to resume the 'reverse scent' of the aeriel path that led him to Evreux. He only thinks of finding again his lost home.
